till 


• 


GIFT  OF 

D  BACON 


ISee  page  130 


AT   THE    OPERA 


ISee  pa*e  130 


--.  r     1  HK    •)! 


IMAGINARY 
I  N  T  E  RVI EWS 


BY 
W.     D.     HO  WELLS 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS     PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND   LONDON 

IQIO 


Copyright,  1910,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS 

Published  October,  1910 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

IMAGINARY  INTERVIEWS 

CHAP.  pAGE 

I.  THE  RESTORATION  OF  THE  EASY  CHAIR  BY  WAY  OF 

INTRODUCTION 1 

II.  A  YEAR  OF  SPRING  AND  A  LIFE  OF  YOUTH    ....  13 

III.  SCLEROSIS  OF  THE  TASTES 22 

IV.  THE  PRACTICES  AND  PRECEPTS  OF  VAUDEVILLE    .     .  32 

V.  INTIMATIONS  OF  ITALIAN  OPERA 44 

VI.  THE  SUPERIORITY  OF  OUR  INFERIORS 57 

VII.  UNIMPORTANCE  OF  WOMEN  IN  REPUBLICS  ....  67 

VIII.  HAVING  JUST  GOT  HOME       77 

IX.  NEW  YORK  TO  THE  HOME-COMER'S  EYE     ....  87 

X.  CHEAPNESS  OF  THE  COSTLIEST  CITY  ON  EARTH     .     .  97 

XI.  WAYS  AND  MEANS  OF  LIVING  IN  NEW  YORK       .     .  107 

XII.  THE  QUALITY  OF  BOSTON  AND  THE  QUANTITY  OF  NEW 

YORK 117 

XIII.  THE  WHIRL  OF  LIFE  IN  OUR  FIRST  CIRCLES       .     .  127 

XIV.  THE  MAGAZINE  MUSE 137 

XV.  COMPARATIVE  LUXURIES  OF  TRAVEI 146 

XVI.  QUALITIES  WITHOUT  DEFECTS 156 

XVII.  A  WASTED  OPPORTUNITY        166 

XVIII.  A  NIECE'S  LITERARY  ADVICE  TO  HER  UNCLE      .     .  176 

XIX.  A  SEARCH  FOR  CELEBRITY 184 

XX.  PRACTICAL  IMMORTALITY  ON  EARTH 194 

XXI.  AROUND  A  RAINY-DAY  FIRE 204 

XXII.  THE  ADVANTAGES  OF  QUOTATIOXAL  CRITICISM     .     .  216 

XXIII.  READING  FOR  A  GRANDFATHER 226 

XXIV.  SOME  MOMENTS  WITH  THE  MUSE 236 

XXV.  A  NORMAL  HERO  AND  HEROINE  OUT  OF  WORK  244 


282129 


CONTENTS 


OTHER  ESSAYS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  AUTUMN  IN  THE  COUNTRY  AND  CITY 255 

II.  PERSONAL  AND  EPISTOLARY  ADDRESSES 264 

III.  DRESSING  FOR  HOTEL  DINNER 274 

IV.  THE  COUNSEL  OF  LITERARY  AGE  TO  LITERARY  YOUTH     .  283 

V.  THE  UNSATISFACTORINESS  OF  UNFRIENDLY  CRITICISM    .  296 

VI.  THE  FICKLENESS  OF  AGE 306 

VII.  THE  RENEWAL  OF  INSPIRATION 316 

VIII.  THE  SUMMER  SOJOURN  OF  FLORINDO  AND  LINDORA   .  326 

IX.  To  HAVE  THE  HONOR  OF  MEETING 338 

X.  A  DAY  AT  BRONX  PARK 350 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


AT  THE   OPERA        ..............  Frontispiece 

FIFTH    AVENUE    AT   THIRTY-FOURTH    STREET    .....  Facing  p.    88 

FIFTH  AVENUE  FROM  THE  TOP  OF  A  MOTOR-BUS  .      .       .      .  "            94 

CHARLES    EMBANKMENT,    BELOW    HARVARD    BRIDGE       .       .  "          120 

THE    MALL,    CENTRAL    PARK        ..........  "         15g 

BROADWAY    AT    NIGHT       ...........  "          256 

ELECTION-NIGHT    CROWDS     .......  "         260 

ZOOLOGICAL   GARDENS,    BRONX    PARK      ...  "         352 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 


THE  RESTORATION  OF  THE  EASY  CHAIR  BY  WAY 
OF  INTRODUCTION 

IT  is  not  generally  known  that  after  forty-two  years 
of  constant  use  the  aged  and  honored  movable  which 
now  again  finds  itself  put  back  in  its  old  place  in  the 
rear  of  Harper  s  Magazine  was  stored  in  the  ware 
house  of  a  certain  safety-deposit  company,  in  the  win 
ter  of  1892.  The  event  which  had  then  vacated  the 
chair  is  still  so  near  as  to  be  full  of  a  pathos  tenderly 
personal  to  all  readers  of  that  magazine,  and  may  not 
be  lightly  mentioned  in  any  travesty  of  the  facts  by 
one  who  was  thought  of  for  the  empty  place.  He, 
before  putting  on  the  mask  and  mimic  editorial  robes 
—for  it  was  never  the  real  editor  who  sat  in  the  Easy 
Chair,  except  for  that  brief  hour  when  he  took  it  to 
pay  his  deep-thought  and  deep-felt  tribute  to  its  last 
occupant — stood  with  bowed  face  and  uncovered  head 
in  that  bravest  and  gentlest  presence  which,  while  it 
abode  with  us  here,  men  knew  as  George  William 
Curtis. 

It  was,  of  course,  in  one  of  the  best  of  the  fireproof 
warehouses  that  the  real  editor  had  the  Easy  Chair 
stored,  and  when  the  unreal  editor  went  to  take  it 

l 


INTERVIEWS 


out  of   storage  lie  found   it  without  trouble   in  one 
of  those  vast  rooms  where  the  more  valuable  furni 
ture  and  bric-a-brac  are  guarded  in  a  special  tutelage. 
If  instinct  had  not  taught  him,  he  would  have  known 
it  by  its  homely  fashion,  which  the  first  unreal  editor 
had  suggested  when  he  described  it  as  an  "  old  red- 
backed  Easy  Chair  that  has  long  been  an  ornament  of 
our  dingy  office."     That  unreality  was  Mr.  Donald  G. 
Mitchell,  the  graceful  and  gracious  Ik  Marvel,  dear  to 
the  old  hearts  that  are  still  young  for  his  Dream  Life 
and  his  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  and  never  unreal  in 
anything  but  his  pretence  of  being  the  real  editor  of 
the  magazine.     In  this  disguise  he  feigned  that  he  had 
"  a  way  of  throwing  "  himself  back  in  the  Easy  Chair, 
"  and  indulging  in  an  easy  and  careless  overlook  of 
the  gossiping  papers  of  the  day,  and  in  such  chit-chat 
with  chance  visitors  as  kept  him  informed  of  the  drift 
of  the  town  talk,  while   it  relieved  greatly  the  mo 
notony  of  his  office  hours."     Not  "  bent  on  choosing 
mere  gossip,"  he  promised  to  be  "  on  the  watch  for 
such   topics    or    incidents    as  "    seemed    really    impor 
tant    and   suggestive,    and    to   set   them    "  down   witli 
all  that  gloss,  and  that  happy  lack  of  sequence,  which 
make  every  -  day  talk  so  much  better  than  every  -  day 
writing." 

While  the  actual  unreality  stood  thinking  how  per 
fectly  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  Easy  Chair  for 
hard  upon  fifty  years  had  been  forecast  in  these  words, 
and  while  the  warehouse  agent  stood  waiting  his  pleas 
ure,  the  Easy  Chair  fetched  a  long,  deep  sigh.  Sigh 
one  must  call  the  sound,  but  it  was  rather  like  that  soft 
complaint  of  the  woody  fibres  in  a  table  which  dis 
embodied  spirits  are  about  to  visit,  and  which  continues 
to  exhale  from  it  till  their  peculiar  vocabulary  utters 
itself  in  a  staccato  of  muffled  taps.  ISTo  one  who  has 

2 


RESTORATION  OF  THE  EASY  CHAIR 

heard  that  sound  can  mistake  it  for  another,  and  the 
unreal  editor  knew  at  once  that  he  confronted  in  the 
Easy  Chair  an  animate  presence. 

"  How  long  have  I  been  here  ?"  it  asked,  like  one 
wakened  from  a  deep  sleep. 

"  About  eight  years,"  said  the  unreal  editor. 

"  Ah,  I  remember,"  the  Easy  Chair  murmured,  and, 
as  the  unreal  editor  bent  forward  to  pluck  away  certain 
sprays  of  foliage  that  clung  to  its  old  red  back,  it  de 
manded,  "What  is  that?" 

"  Some  bits  of  holly  and  mistletoe." 

"Yes,"  the  Easy  Chair  softly  murmured  again. 
"  The  last  essay  he  wrote  in  me  was  about  Christmas. 
I  have  not  forgotten  one  word  of  it  all:  how  it  began, 
how  it  went  on,  and  how  it  ended !  '  In  the  very  prom 
ise  of  the  year  appears  the  hectic  of  its  decay.  .  .  . 
The  question  that  we  have  to  ask,  forecasting  in  these 
summer  days  the  coming  of  Christmas  which  already 
shines  afar  off,  is  this :  whether  while  we  praise  Christ 
mas  as  a  day  of  general  joy  we  take  care  to  keep  it  so. 
.  .  .  Thackeray  describes  a  little  dinner  at  the  Tim- 
minses'.  A  modest  couple  make  themselves  miserable 
and  spend  all  their  little  earnings  in  order  to  give  a 
dinner  to  people  for  whom  they  do  not  care,  and  who  do 
not  care  for  them.  .  .  .  Christmas  is  made  miserable 
to  the  Timminses  because  they  feel  that  they  must 
spend  lavishly  and  buy  gifts  like  their  richer  neigh 
bors.  .  .  .  You  cannot  buy  Christmas  at  the  shops,  and 
a  sign  of  friendly  sympathy  costs  little.  .  .  .  Should 
not  the  extravagance  of  Christmas  cause  every  honest 
man  and  woman  practically  to  protest  by  refusing  to 
yield  to  the  extravagance?'  There!"  the  Easy  Chair 
broke  off  from  quoting,  "  that  was  Curtis !  The  kind 
and  reasonable  mood,  the  righteous  conscience  incar 
nate  in  the  studied  art,  the  charming  literary  allusion 

3 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

for  the  sake  of  the  unliterary  lesson,  the  genial  phi 
losophy — 

'  not  too  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food' — 

the  wisdom  alike  of  the  closet  and  the  public  square, 
the  large  patience  and  the  undying  hopefulness!  Do 
you  think/'  the  Easy  Chair  said,  with  a  searching  se 
verity  one  would  not  have  expected  of  it,  "  that  you  are 
fit  to  take  his  place  ?" 

In  evasion  of  this  hard  question  the  unreal  editor 
temporized  with  the  effect  of  net  having  heard  it.  "  I 
believe  that  he  and  Mr.  Mitchell  were  the  only  writers 
of  your  papers  till  Mr.  Alden  wrote  the  last  ?" 

The  Easy  Chair  responded,  dryly,  "  You  forget 
Aldrich." 

"  If  I  do,  I  arn  the  only  pebble  on  the  shore  of  time 
that  does  or  will,"  retorted  the  unreal  editor.  "  But 
he  wrote  you  for  only  two  months.  I  well  remember 
what  a  pleasure  he  had  in  it.  And  he  knew  how  to 
make  his  readers  share  his  pleasure !  Still,  it  was  Mr. 
Mitchell  who  invented  you,  and  it  was  Curtis  who 
characterized  you  beyond  all  the  rest." 

"  Eor  a  while,"  said  the  Easy  Chair,  with  auto 
biographical  relish,  "  they  wrote  me  together,  but  it 
was  not  long  before  Mr.  Mitchell  left  off,  and  Curtis 
kept  on  alone,  and,  as  you  say,  he  incomparably  char 
acterized  me.  He  had  his  millennial  hopes  as  well  as 
you.  In  his  youth  he  trusted  in  a  time 

'  When  the  common  sense  of  most  shall  hold  a  fretful  realm 

in  awe, 
And  the  kindly  earth  shall  slumber,  lapt  in  universal  law/ 

and  he  never  lost  that  faith.  As  he  wrote  in  one  of 
my  best  papers,  the  famous  paper  on  Brook  Farm, 


RESTORATION  OF  THE  EASY  CHAIR 

'  Bound  fast  by  the  brazen  age,  we  can  see  that  the 
way  back  to  the  age  of  gold  lies  through  justice,  which 
will  substitute  co-operatioii  for  competition.7  He  ex 
pected  the  world  to  be  made  over  in  the  image  of 
heaven  some  time,  but  meanwhile  he  was  glad  to  help 
make  it  even  a  little  better  and  pleasanter  than  he 
found  it.  He  was  ready  to  tighten  a  loose  screw  here 
and  there,  to  pour  a  drop  of  oil  on  the  rusty  machinery, 
to  mend  a  broken  wheel.  He  was  not  above  putting  a 
patch  on  a  rift  where  a  whiff  of  infernal  air  came  up 
from  the  Bottomless  Pit — " 

"  And  I  also  believe  in  alleviations,"  the  unreal 
editor  interrupted.  "I  love  justice,  but  charity  is 
far  better  than  nothing;  and  it  would  be  abominable 
not  to  do  all  we  can  because  we  cannot  at  once  do  every 
thing.  Let  us  have  the  expedients,  the  ameliorations, 
even  the  compromises,  en  attendant  the  millennium. 
Let  us  accept  the  provisional,  the  makeshift.  He  who 
came  on  Christmas  Day,  and  whose  mission,  as  every 
Christmas  Day  comes  to  remind  us,  was  the  brother 
hood,  the  freedom,  the  equality  of  men,  did  not  He 
warn  us  against  hastily  putting  new  wine  into  old 
bottles?  To  get  the  new  bottles  ready  is  slow  work: 
that  kind  of  bottle  must  grow ;  it  cannot  be  made ;  and 
in  the  mean  time  let  us  keep  our  latest  vintages  in  the 
vat  till  we  have  some  vessel  proof  against  their  fer 
mentation.  I  know  that  the  hope  of  any  such  vessel 
is  usually  mocked  as  mere  optimism,  but  I  think  opti 
mism  is  as  wise  and  true  as  pessimism,  or  is  at  least  as 
well  founded ;  and  since  the  one  can  no  more  establish 
itself  as  final  truth  than  the  other,  it  is  better  to  have 
optimism.  That  was  always  the  philosophy  of  the 
Easy  Chair,  and  I  do  not  know  why  that  should  be 
changed.  The  conditions  are  not  changed." 

There  was  a  silence  which  neither  the  Easy  Chair 

5 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

nor  the  unreal  editor  broke  for  a  while.  Then  the 
Chair  suggested,  "  I  suppose  that  there  is  not  much 
change  in  Christmas,  at  any  rate  ?" 

"  No,"  said  the  unreal  editor ;  "  it  goes  on  pretty 
much  as  it  used.  The  Timminses,  who  give  tiresome 
little  dinners  which  they  cannot  afford  to  dull  people 
who  don't  want  them,  are  still  alive  and  miserably  bent 
on  heaping  reluctant  beneficiaries  with  undesired  fa 
vors,  and  spoiling  the  simple  '  pleasure  of  the  time ' 
with  the  activities  of  their  fatuous  vanity.  Or  per 
haps  you  think  I  ought  to  bring  a  hopeful  mind  even  to 
the  Timminses  ?" 

"  I  don't  see  why  not,"  said  the  Easy  Chair.  "  They 
are  not  the  architects  of  their  own  personalities." 

"  Ah,  take  care,  take  care !"  cried  the  unreal  editor. 
"  You  will  be  saying  next  that  we  are  the  creatures  of 
our  environment;  that  the  Timminses  would  be  wiser 
and  better  if  the  conditions  were  not  idiotic  and  per 
nicious  ;  and  you  know  what  that  comes  to !" 

"  No,  I  am  in  no  danger  of  that,"  the  Easy  Chair 
retorted.  "  The  Timminses  are  no  such  victims  of  the 
conditions.  They  are  of  that  vast  moderately  moneyed 
class  who  can  perfectly  well  behave  with  sense  if  they 
will.  Nobody  above  them  or  below  them  asks  them  to 
be  foolish  and  wasteful." 

"  And  just  now  you  were  making  excuses  for 
them!" 

"  I  said  they  were  not  the  architects  of  their  own 
personalities;  but,  nevertheless,  they  are  masters  of 
themselves.  They  are  really  free  to  leave  off  giving 
little  dinners  any  day  they  think  so.  It  should  be  the 
moralist's  business  to  teach  them  to  think  so." 

"  And  that  was  what  Curtis  gladly  made  his  busi 
ness,"  the  unreal  editor  somewhat  sadly  confessed,  with 
an  unspoken  regret  for  his  own  difference.  More  than 

6 


RESTORATION  OF  THE  EASY  CHAIR 

once  it  had  seemed  to  him  in  considering  that  rare 
nature  that  he  differed  from  most  reformers  chiefly 
in  loving  the  right  rather  than  in  hating  the  wrong; 
in  fact,  in  not  hating  at  all,  but  in  pitying  and  ac 
counting  for  the  wrong  as  an  ancient  use  corrupted  into 
an  abuse.  Involuntarily  the  words  of  the  real  editor 
in  that  beautiful  tribute  to  the  high  soul  they  were 
praising  came  to  the  unreal  editor's  lips,  and  he  quoted 
aloud  to  the  Easy  Chair :  "  '  His  love  of  goodness  was 
a  passion.  He  would  fain  have  seen  all  that  was  fair 
and  good,  and  he  strove  to  find  it  so;  and,  finding  it 
otherwise,  he  strove  to  make  it  so.  ...  With  no  heart 
for  satire,  the  discord  that  fell  upon  his  sensitive  ear 
made  itself  felt  in  his  dauntless  comment  upon  social 
shams  and  falsehoods.  .  .  .  But  he  was  a  lover  of 
peace,  and,  ...  as  he  was  the  ideal  gentleman,  the 
ideal  citizen,  he  was  also  the  ideal  reformer,  without 
eccentricity  or  exaggeration.  However  high  his  ideal, 
it  never  parted  company  with  good  sense.  He  never 
wanted  better  bread  than  could  be  made  of  wheat,  but 
the  wheat  must  be  kept  good  and  sound,'  and  I  may 
add,"  the  unreal  editor  broke  off,  "  that  he  did  not 
hurry  the  unripe  grain  to  the  hopper.  He  would  not 
have  sent  all  the  horses  at  once  to  the  abattoir  because 
they  made  the  city  noisy  and  noisome,  but  would  first 
have  waited  till  there  were  automobiles  enough  to  sup 
ply  their  place." 

The  Easy  Chair  caught  at  the  word.  "  Automo 
biles  ?"  it  echoed. 

"  Ah,  I  forgot  how  long  you  have  been  stored,"  said 
the  unreal  editor,  and  he  explained  as  well  as  he  could 
the  new  mode  of  motion,  and  how  already,  with  its  soft 
rubber  galoshes,  the  automobile  had  everywhere  stolen 
a  march  upon  the  iron  heels  of  the  horses  in  the  city 
avenues. 

7 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

He  fancied  the  Easy  Chair  did  not  understand,  quite, 
from  the  intelligent  air  with  which  it  eagerly  quitted 
the  subject. 

"  Well,"  it  said  at  last,  "  this  isn't  such  a  bad  time 
to  live  in,  after  all,  it  appears.  But  for  a.  supreme  test 
of  your  optimism,  now,  what  good  can  you  find  to  say 
of  Christmas  ?  What  sermon  could  you  preach  on  that 
hackneyed  theme  which  would  please  the  fancy  and 
gladden  the  heart  of  the  readers  of  a  Christmas  num 
ber,  where  you  should  make  your  first  appearance  in  the 
Easy  Chair  ?" 

To  himself  the  unreal  editor  had  to  own  that  this 
was  a  poser.  In  his  heart  he  was  sick  of  Christmas: 
not  of  the  dear  and  high  event,  the  greatest  in  the 
memory  of  the  world,  which  it  records  ard  embodies, 
but  the  stale  and  wearisome  Christmas  of  the  Christ 
mas  presents,  purchased  in  rage  and  bestowed  in  de 
spair  ;  the  Christmas  of  Christmas  fiction ;  the  Christ 
mas  of  heavy  Christmas  dinners  and  indigestions;  the 
Christmas  of  all  superfluity  and  surfeit  and  senti 
mentality;  the  Christmas  of  the  Timminses  and  the 
Tiny  Tims.  But  while  he  thought  of  these,  by  oper 
ation  of  the  divine  law  which  renders  all  things  sen 
sible  by  their  opposites,  he  thought  of  the  other  kinds 
of  Christmas  which  can  never  weary  or  disgust:  the 
Christmas  of  the  little  children  and  the  simple- 
hearted  and  the  poor;  and  suddenly  he  addressed  him 
self  to  the  Easy  Chair  with  unexpected  and  surprising 
courage. 

"Why  should  that  be  so  very  difficult?"  he  de 
manded.  "If  you  look  at  it  rightly,  Christmas  is 
always  full  of  inspiration;  and  songs  as  well  as  ser 
mons  will  flow  from  it  till  time  shall  be  no  more.  The 
trouble  with  us  is  that  we  think  it  is  for  the  pleasure 
of  opulent  and  elderly  people,  for  whom  there  can  be 

8 


RESTORATION  OF  THE  EASY  CHAIR 

no  pleasures,  but  only  habits.  They  are  used  to  having 
everything,  and  as  joy  dwells  in  novelty  it  has  ceased 
to  be  for  them  in  Christmas  gifts  and  giving  and  all 
manner  of  Christmas  conventions.  But  for  the  young 
to  whom  these  things  are  new,  and  for  the  poor  to  whom 
they  are  rare,  Christmas  and  Christrnasing  are  sources 
of  perennial  happiness.  All  that  you  have  to  do  is  to 
guard  yourself  from  growing  rich  and  from  growing 
old,  and  then  the  delight  of  Christmas  is  yours  for 
ever.  It  is  not  difficult;  it  is  very  simple;  for  even 
if  years  and  riches  come  upon  you  in  a  literal  way, 
you  can  by  a  little  trying  keep  yourself  young  and  poor 
in  spirit.  Then  you  can  always  rejoice  with  the  in 
nocent  and  riot  with  the  destitute. 

"  I  once  knew  a  father,"  the  unreal  editor  continued, 
"  a  most  doting  and  devoted  father,  who,  when  he  bent 
over  the  beds  of  his  children  to  bid  them  good-night, 
and  found  them  '  high  sorrowful  and  cloyed,'  as  the 
little  ones  are  apt  to  be  after  a  hard  day's  pleasure, 
used  to  bid  them  l  Think  about  Christmas.'  If  he 
offered  this  counsel  on  the  night,  say,  of  the  20th  of 
December,  and  they  had  to  look  forward  to  a  whole 
year  before  their  hopes  of  consolation  could  possibly 
find  fruition,  they  had  (as  they  afterward  confessed 
to  him)  a  sense  of  fatuity  if  not  of  mocking  in  it. 
Even  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  after  the  last  cracker 
had  been  fired  and  the  last  roman  candle  spent,  they 
owned  that  they  had  never  been  able  to  think  about 
Christmas  to  an  extent  that  greatly  assuaged  their 
vague  regrets.  It  was  not  till  the  following  Thanks 
giving  that  they  succeeded  in  thinking  about  Christ 
mas  with  anything  like  the  entire  cheerfulness  expected 
of  them." 

:c I  don't  see  any  application  in  this  homily,"  said 
the  Easy  Chair,  "  or  only  an  application  disastrous  to 
2  n 


IMAGINAKY    INTERVIEWS 

your  imaginable  postulate  that  Christmas  is  a  benefi 
cent  and  consolatory  factor  in  our  lives." 

"  That  is  because  you  have  not  allowed  me  to  con 
clude,"  the  unreal  editor  protested,  when  the  Easy 
Chair  cut  in  with, 

"  There  is  nothing  I  would  so  willingly  allow  you 
to  do,"  and  "  laughed  and  shook "  as  if  it  had  been 
"  Rabelais's  easy  chair." 

The  unreal  editor  thought  it  best  to  ignore  the  un 
timely  attempt  at  wit.  "  The  difficulty  in  this  case 
with  both  the  father  and  the  children  was  largely  tem 
peramental;  but  it  was  chiefly  because  of  a  defect  in 
their  way  of  thinking  about  Christmas.  It  was  a  very 
ancient  error,  by  no  means  peculiar  to  this  amiable 
family,  and  it  consisted  in  thinking  about  Christmas 
with  reference  to  one's  self  instead  of  others." 

"  Isn't  that  rather  banal  ?"  the  Easy  Chair  asked. 

"  ]N"ot  at  all  banal,"  said  the  unreal  editor,  resisting 
an  impulse  to  do  the  Easy  Chair  some  sort  of  violence. 
At  the  same  time  he  made  his  reflection  that  if  preach 
ers  were  criticised  in  that  way  to  their  faces  there 
would  shortly  be  very  few  saints  left  in  the  pulpit. 
He  gave  himself  a  few  moments  to  recover  his  temper, 
and  then  he  went  on :  "  If  Christmas  means  anything 
at  all,  it  means  anything  but  one's  own  pleasure.  Up 
to  the  first  Christmas  Day  the  whole  world  had  sup 
posed  that  it  could  be  happy  selfishly,  and  its  children 
still  suppose  so.  But  there  is  really  no  such  thing  as 
selfish,  as  personal  happiness." 

"  Tolstoy,"  the  Easy  Chair  noted. 

"Yes,  Tolstoy,"  the  unreal  editor  retorted.  "He 
more  than  any  other  has  brought  us  back  to  the  knowl 
edge  of  this  truth  which  came  into  the  world  with 
Christmas,  perhaps  because  he,  more  than  any  other, 

has  tried  to  think  and  to  live   Christianity.      When 

10 


RESTORATION  OF  THE  EASY  CHAIR 

once  you  have  got  this  vital  truth  into  your  mind,  the 
whole  universe  is  luminously  filled  with  the  possibili 
ties  of  impersonal,  unselfish  happiness.  The  joy  of 
living  is  suddenly  expanded  to  the  dimensions  of  hu 
manity,  and  you  can  go  on  taking  your  pleasure  as  long 
as  there  is  one  unfriended  soul  and  body  in  the  world. 
"  It  is  well  to  realize  this  at  all  times,  but  it  is 
peculiarly  fit  to  do  so  at  Christmas-time,  for  it  is  in 
this  truth  that  the  worship  of  Christ  begins.  Now,  too, 
is  the  best  time  to  give  the  Divine  Word  form  in  deed, 
to  translate  love  into  charity.  I  do  not  mean  only 
the  material  charity  that  expresses  itself  in  turkeys  and 
plum  -  puddings  for  the  poor,  but  also  that  spiritual 
charity  which  takes  thought  how  so  to  amend  the  sor- 
rowfiil  conditions  of  civilization  that  poverty,  which 
is  the  antithesis  of  fraternity,  shall  abound  less  and 
less. 

1  Now  is  the  time,  now  is  the  time, 
Now  is  the  hour  of  golden  prime ' 

for  asking  one's  self,  not  how  much  one  has  given  in 
goods  or  moneys  during  the  past  year,  but  how  much 
one  has  given  in  thought  and  will  to  remove  forever 
the  wrong  and  shame  of  hopeless  need ;  and  to  con 
sider  what  one  may  do  in  the  coming  year  to  help  put 
the  poor  lastingly  beyond  the  need  of  help. 

"  To  despair  of  somehow,  sometime  doing  this  is  to 
sin  against  the  light  of  Christmas  Day,  to  confess  its 
ideal  a  delusion,  its  practice  a  failure.  If  on  no  other 
day  of  all  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five,  we  must 
on  this  day  renew  our  faith  in  justice,  which  is  the 
highest  rnercy." 

The  Easy  Chair  no  longer  interrupted,  and  the  un 
real  editor,  having  made  his  point,  went  on  after  the 
manner  of  preachers,  when  thev  are  also  editors,  to 

11 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

make  it  over  again,  and  to  repeat  himself  pitilessly, 
unsparingly.  He  did  not  observe  that  the  Easy  Chair 
had  shrunk  forward  until  all  its  leathern  seat  was 
wrinkled  and  its  carven  top  was  bent  over  its  old  red 
back.  When  he  stopped  at  last,  the  warehouse  agent 
asked  in  whisper, 

"  What  do  you  want  done  with  it,  sir  ?" 
"  Oh,"    said   the   unreal    editor,    "  send    it   back   to 
Franklin  Square  " ;  and  then,  with  a  sudden  realization 
of  the  fact,  he  softly  added,  "  Don't  wake  it." 

There  in  Franklin  Square,  still  dreaming,  it  was 
set  up  in  the  rear  of  the  magazine,  where  it  has  be 
come  not  only  the  place,  but  the  stuff  of  dreams  such 
as  men  are  made  of.  From  month  to  month,  ever  since, 
its  reveries,  its  illusions,  which  some  may  call  de 
liverances,  have  gone  on  with  more  and  more  a  dis 
position  to  dramatize  themselves.  It  has  seemed  to 
the  occupant  of  the  Easy  Chair,  at  times,  as  if  he  had 
suffered  with  it  some  sort  of  land-change  from  a  sole 
entity  to  a  multiple  personality  in  which  his  several 
selves  conversed  with  one  another,  and  came  and  went 
unbidden.  At  first,  after  a  moment  of  question  whether 
his  imagination  was  not  frequented  by  the  phantoms 
of  delight  which  in  the  flesh  had  formerly  filled  his 
place,  whether  the  spirits  which  haunted  him  in  it- 
were  not  those  of  Mitchell,  of  Curtis,  of  Aldrich,  he 
became  satisfied  from  their  multitude  and  nature  that 
they  were  the  subdivisions  of  his  own  ego,  and  as  such 
he  has  more  and  more  frankly  treated  them. 


II 

A   YEAR  OF  SPRING  AND  A   LIFE  OF  YOUTH 

Ox  one  of  those  fine  days  which  the  April  of  the 
other  year  meanly  grudged  us,  a  poet,  flown  with  the 
acceptance  of  a  quarter-page  lyric  by  the  real  editor  in 
the  Study  next  door,  came  into  the  place  where  the  Easy 
Chair  sat  rapt  in  the  music  of  the  elevated  trains  and 
the  vision  of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  towers.  "  Era  hi 
stagione  nella  qualc  la  rivestita  terra,  piu  die  tutto 
1'  altro  anno,  si  mostra  bella,"  he  said,  without  other 
salutation,  throwing  his  soft  gray  hat  on  a  heap  of 
magazines  and  newspapers  in  the  corner,  and  finding 
what  perch  he  could  for  himself  on  the  window-sill. 

"What  is  that?"  he  of  the  Easy  Chair  gruffly  de 
manded  ;  he  knew  perfectly  well,  biit  he  liked  marring 
the  bloom  on  a  fellow-creature's  joy  by  a  show  of  savage 
ignorance. 

"  It's  the  divine  beginning  of  Boccaccio's  '  Fiam- 
metta,'  it  is  the  very  soul  of  spring;  and  it  is  so  in 
alienably  of  Boccaccio's  own  time  and  tongue  and  sun 
and  air  that  there  is  no  turning  it  into  the  lan 
guage  of  another  period  or  climate.  What  would  you 
find  to  thrill  you  in,  '  It  was  the  season  in  which  the 
reapparelled  earth,  more  than  in  all  the  other  year, 
shows  herself  fair'?  The  rhythm  is  lost;  the  flow, 
sweet  as  the  first  runnings  of  the  maple  where  the  wood 
pecker  has  tapped  it,  stiffens  into  sugar,  the  liquid  form 

13 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

is  solidified  into  the  cake  adulterated  with  glucose,  and 
sold  for  a  cent  as  the  pure  Vermont  product." 

As  he  of  the  Easy  Chair  could  not  deny  this,  he 
laughed  recklessly.  "  I  understood  what  your  passage 
from  Boccaccio  meant,  and  why  you  came  in  here 
praising  spring  in  its  words.  You  are  happy  because 
you  have  sold  a  poem,  probably  for  more  than  it  is 
worth.  But  why  do  you  praise  spring?  What  do  you 
fellows  do  it  for?  You  know  perfectly  well  that  it  is 
the  most  capricious,  the  most  treacherous,  the  most  de 
lusive,  deadly,  slatternly,  down  -  at  -  heels,  milkmaid- 
handed  season  of  the  year,  without  decision  of  char 
acter  or  fixed  principles,  and  with  only  the  vaguest 
raw-girlish  ideals,  a  red  nose  between  crazy  smiles  and 
streaming  eyes.  If  it  did  not  come  at  the  end  of  win 
ter,  when  people  are  glad  of  any  change,  nobody  could 
endure  it,  and  it  would  be  cast  neck  and  crop  out  of 
the  calendar.  Fancy  spring  coming  at  the  end  of  sum 
mer!  It  would  not  be  tolerated  for  a  moment,  with 
the  contrast  of  its  crude,  formless  beauty  and  the  ripe 
loveliness  of  August.  Every  satisfied  sense  of  hap 
piness,  secure  and  established,  would  be  insulted  by 
its  haphazard  promises  made  only  to  be  broken. 
'  Rather,'  the  outraged  mortal  would  say,  '  the  last 
tender  hours  of  autumn,  the  first  deathful  -  thrilling 
snowfall,  with  all  the  thoughts  of  life  wandering  flake- 
like  through  the  dim  air  —  rather  these  than  the  re 
currence  of  those  impulses  and  pauses,  those  kisses 
frozen  on  the  lips,  those  tender  rays  turning  to  the 
lash  of  sleet  across  the  face  of  nature.  No,  the  only 
advantage  spring  can  claim  over  her  sister  seasons  is 
her  novelty,  the  only  reason  she  can  offer  for  being  the 
spoiled  child  of  the  poets  is  that  nobody  but  the  poets 
could  keep  on  fancying  that  there  was  any  longer  the 

least  originality  in  her  novelty." 

14 


A    YEAR    OF    SPRING 

The  poet  attempted  to  speak,  in  the  little  stop  he  of 
the  Easy  Chair  made  for  taking  breath,  but  he  was 
not  suffered  to  do  so. 

"  Every  atom  of  originality  has  been  drained  from 
the  novelty  of  spring  i  in  the  process  of  the  suns/  and 
science  is  rapidly  depriving  her  even  of  novelty.  What 
was  once  supposed  to  be  the  spring  grass  has  been  found 
to  be  nothing  but  the  fall  grass,  with  the  green  stealing 
back  into  the  withered  blades.  As  for  the  spring  lamb 
which  used  to  crop  the  spring  grass,  it  is  now  out  of 
the  cold-storage  where  the  spring  chicken  and  the  new- 
laid  eggs  of  yesteryear  come  from.  It  is  said  that 
there  are  no  birds  in  last  year's  nests,  but  probably  a 
careful  examination  would  discover  a  plentiful  hatch 
of  nestlings  which  have  hibernated  in  the  habitations 
popularly  supposed  to  be  deserted  the  June  before  this. 
Early  spring  vegetables  are  in  market  throughout  the 
twelvemonth,  and  spring  flowers  abound  at  the  florists' 
in  December  and  January.  There  is  no  reason  why 
spring  should  not  be  absorbed  into  winter  and  summer 
by  some  such  partition  as  took  place  politically  in  the 
case  of  Poland.  Like  that  unhappy  kingdom,  she  has 
abused  her  independence  and  become  a  molestation  and 
discomfort  to  the  annual  meteorology.  As  a  season 
she  is  distinctly  a  failure,  being  neither  one  thing  nor 
the  other,  neither  hot  nor  cold,  a  very  T  aodicean.  Her 
winds  were  once  supposed  to  be  very  siccative,  and 
peculiarly  useful  in  drying  the  plaster  in  new  houses; 
but  now  the  contractors  put  in  radiators  as  soon  as  the 
walls  are  up,  and  the  work  is  done  much  better.  As 
for  the  germinative  force  of  her  suns,  in  these  days  of 
intensive  farming,  when  electricity  is  applied  to  the 
work  once  done  by  them,  they  can  claim  to  have  no 
virtue  beyond  the  suns  of  July  or  August,  which  most 
seeds  find  effective  enough.  If  spring  were  absorbed 

15 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

into  summer,  the  heat  of  that  season  would  be  qualified, 
and  its  gentler  warmth  would  be  extended  to  autumn, 
which  would  be  prolonged  into  the  winter.  The  rigors 
of  winter  would  be  much  abated,  and  the  partition  of 
spring  among  the  other  seasons  would  perform  the 
mystic  office  of  the  Gulf  Stream  in  ameliorating  our 
climate,  besides  ridding  us  of  a  time  of  most  tedious 
and  annoying  suspense.  And  what  should  we  lose 
by  it?" 

The  poet  seemed  not  to  be  answering  the  Easy  Chair 
directly,  but  only  to  be  murmuring  to  himself, 
"  Youth." 

"Youth!  Youth!"  the  Easy  Chair  repeated  in  ex 
asperation.  "  And  what  is  youth  ?" 

"  The  best  thing  in  the  world." 

"  For  whom  is  it  the  best  thing  ?" 

This  question  seemed  to  give  the  poet  pause. 
"  Well,"  he  said,  finally,  with  a  not  very  forcible  smile, 
"  for  itself." 

"  Ah,  there  you  are !"  he  of  the  Easy  Chair  ex 
claimed  ;  but  he  could  not  help  a  forgiving  laugh.  "  In 
a  way  you  are  right.  The  world  belongs  to  youth,  and 
so  it  ought  to  be  the  best  thing  for  itself  in  it.  Youth 
is  a  very  curious  thing,  and  in  that  it  is  like  spring, 
especially  like  the  spring  we  have  just  been  having,  to 
our  cost.  It  is  the  only  period  of  life,  as  spring  is  the 
only  season  of  the  year,  that  has  too  much  time  on  its 
hands.  Yet  it  does  not  seem  to  waste  time,  as  age 
does,  as  winter  does;  it  keeps  doing  something  all  the 
while.  The  things  it  does  are  apparently  very  futile 
and  superfluous,  some  of  them,  but  in  the  end  some 
thing  has  been  accomplished.  After  a  March  of  whim 
sical  suns  and  snows,  an  April  of  quite  fantastical 
frosts  and  thaws,  and  a  May,  at  least  partially,  of  cold 
mists  and  parching  winds,  the  flowers,  which  the  flor- 

10 


A    YEAR    OF    SPRING 

ists  have  been  forcing  for  the  purpose,  are  blooming 
in  the  park ;  the  grass  is  green  wherever  it  has  not  had 
the  roots  trodden  out  of  it,  and  a  filmy  foliage,  like  the 
soft  foulard  tissues  which  the  young  girls  are  wearing, 
drips  from  the  trees.  You  can  say  it  is  all  very  painty, 
the  verdure;  too  painty;  but  you  cannot  reject  the  pict 
ure  because  of  this  little  mannerism  of  the  painter. 
To  be  sure,  you  miss  the  sheeted  snows  and  the  dreamy 
weft  of  leafless  twigs  against  the  hard,  blue  sky.  Still, 
now  it  has  come,  you  cannot  deny  that  the  spring  is 
pretty,  or  that  the  fashionable  colors  which  it  has  intro 
duced  are  charming.  It  is  said  that  these  are  so  charm 
ing  that  a  woman  of  the  worst  taste  cannot  choose  amiss 
among  them.  In  spite  of  her  taste,  her  hat  comes  out  a 
harmonic  miracle;  her  gown,  against  all  her  endeavors, 
flows  in  an  exquisite  symphony  of  the  tender  audacities 
of  tint  with  which  nature  mixes  her  palette ;  little  notes 
of  chiffon,  of  tulle,  of  feather,  blow  all  about  her. 
This  is  rather  a  medley  of  metaphors,  to  which  several 
arts  contribute,  but  you  get  my  meaning  ?"  In  making 
this  appeal,  he  of  the  Easy  Chair  saw  in  the  fixed  eye 
of  the  poet  that  remoteness  of  regard  which  denotes 
that  your  listener  has  been  hearing  very  little  of  what 
you  have  been  saying. 

"  Yes,"  the  poet  replied  with  a  long  breath,  "  you 
are  right  about  that  dreamy  weft  of  leafless  twigs 
against  the  hard,  blue  sky;  and  I  wonder  if  we  quite  do 
justice  to  the  beauty  of  winter,  of  age,  we  poets,  when 
we  are  so  glad  to  have  the  spring  come." 

"  I  don't  know  about  winter,"  he  of  the  Easy  Chair 
said,  "  but  in  an  opera  which  the  English  Lord  Cham 
berlain  provisionally  suppressed,  out  of  tenderness  for 
an  alliance  not  eventually  or  potentially  to  the  advan 
tage  of  these  States,  Mr.  William  Gilbert  lias  done  his 
duty  to  the  decline  of  life,  where  he  sin<?s, 

17 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

'  There  is  beauty  in  extreme  old  age ; 
There's  a  fascination  frantic 
In   a  ruin   that's  romantic.' 

Or,  at  least  no  one  else  has  said  so  much  for  '  that  time 
of  life,'  which  another  librettist  has  stigmatized  as 

'  Bare,  ruined  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang.' " 

"  Yes,  I  know/'  the  poet  returned,  clinging  to  the 
thread  of  thought  on  which  he  had  cast  himself  loose. 
"  But  I  believe  a  great  deal  more  could  be  said  for 
age  by  the  poets  if  they  really  tried.  I  am  not  satisfied 
of  Mr.  Gilbert's  earnestness  in  the  passage  you  quote 
from  the  '  Mikado/  and  I  prefer  Shakespeare's  '  bare, 
ruined  choirs.'  I  don't  know  but  I  prefer  the  hard, 
unflattering  portrait  which  Hamlet  mockingly  draws 
for  Polonius,  and  there  is  something  almost  caressing 
in  the  notion  of  (  the  lean  and  slippered  pantaloon.' 
The  worst  of  it  is  that  we  old  fellows  look  so  plain  to 
one  another;  I  dare  say  young  people  don't  find  us 
so  bad.  I  can  remember  from  my  own  youth  that  I 
thought  old  men,  and  especially  old  women,  rather  at 
tractive.  I  am  not  sure  that  we  elders  realize  the 
charm  of  a  perfectly  bald  head  as  it  presents  itself  to 
the  eye  of  youth.  Yet,  an  infant's  head  is  often  quite 
bald." 

"  Yes,  and  so  is  an  egg,"  the  Easy  Chair  retorted, 
"  but  there  is  not  the  same  winning  appeal  in  the  bald 
ness  of  the  superannuated  bird  which  has  evolved  from 
it — eagle  or  nightingale,  parrot  or 

Many-wintered  crow  that  leads  the  clanging  rookery  home. 

Tennyson  has  done  his  best  in  showing  us  venerable  in 

his  picture  of 

18 


A    YEAR    OF    SPRING 

'the  Ionian  father  of  the  rest: 
A  million  wrinkles  carved  his  silver  skin, 
A  hundred  winters  snowed  upon  his  breast.' 

But  who  would  not  rather  be  Helen  than  Homer,  her 
face  launching  a  thousand  ships  and  burning  the  top 
less  tower  of  Ilion — fairer  than  the  evening  air  and 
simply  but  effectively  attired  in  the  beauty  of  a  thou 
sand  stars?  What  poet  has  ever  said  things  like  that 
of  an  old  man,  even  of  Methuselah?" 

'  Yes,"  the  poet  sighed.  "  I  suppose  you  are  partly 
right.  Meteorology  certainly  has  the  advantage  of  hu 
manity  in  some  things.  We  cannot  make  much  of  age 
here,  and  hereafter  we  can  only  conceive  of  its  being 
turned  into  youth.  Fancy  an  eternity  of  sensibility!" 

"  No,  I  would  rather  not !"  he  of  the  Easy  Chair 
returned,  sharply.  "  Besides,  it  is  you  who  are  trying 
to  make  age  out  a  tolerable,  even  a  desirable  thing." 

"  But  I  have  given  it  up,"  the  poet  meekly  replied. 
'  The  great  thing  would  be  some  rearrangement  of  our 
mortal  conditions  so  that  once  a  year  we  could  wake 
from  our  dream  of  winter  and  find  ourselves  young. 
Not  merely  younger,  but  young — the  genuine  article. 
A  tree  can  do  that,  and  does  it  every  year,  until  after 
a  hundred  years,  or  three  hundred,  or  a  thousand,  it 
dies.  Why  should  not  a  man,  or,  much  more  impor 
tantly,  a  woman,  do  it?  I  think  we  are  very  much 
scanted  in  that  respect." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  if  you  begin  fault-finding  with 
creation,  there  will  be  no  end  to  it.  It  might  be  an 
swered  that,  in  this  case,  you  can  walk  about  and  a 
tree  cannot;  you  can  call  upon  me  and  a  tree  cannot. 
And  other  things.  Come!  the  trees  have  not  got  it  all 
their  own  way.  Besides,  imagine  the  discomforts  of 
a  human  springtime,  blowing  hot  and  blowing  cold, 

19 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

freezing,  thawing,  raining,  and  drouthing,  and  never 
being  sure  whether  wre  are  young  or  old,  May  or  De 
cember.  We  should  be  such  nuisances  to  one  another 
that  we  should  ask  the  gods  to  take  back  their  gift,  and 
you  know  very  well  they  cannot." 

"  Our  rejuvenescence  would  be  a  matter  of  temper 
ament,  not  temperature,"  the  poet  said,  searching  the 
air  hopefully  for  an  idea.  "  I  have  noticed  this  spring 
that  the  isothermal  line  is  as  crooked  as  a  railroad  on 
the  map  of  a  rival.  I  have  been  down  in  New  Hamp 
shire  since  I  saw  you,  and  I  found  the  spring  temper 
amentally  as  far  advanced  there  as  here  in  New  York. 
Of  course  not  as  far  advanced  as  in  Union  Square, 
but  quite  as  far  as  in  Central  Park.  Between  Boston 
and  Portsmouth  there  were  bits  of  railroad  bank  that 
were  as  green  as  the  sward  beside  the  Mall,  and  every 
now  and  then  there  was  an  enthusiastic  maple  in  the 
wet  lowlands  that  hung  the  air  as  full  of  color  as  any 
maple  that  reddened  the  flying  landscape  when  I  first 
got  beyond  the  New  York  suburbs  on  my  way  north. 
At  Portsmouth  the  birds  were  singing  the  same  songs 
as  in  the  Park.  I  could  not  make  out  the  slightest 
difference." 

"  With  the  same  note  of  nervous  apprehension  in 
them!" 

"  I  did  not  observe  that.  But  they  were  spring  songs, 
certainly." 

"  Then,"  the  Easy  Chair  said,  "  I  would  rather  my 
winter  were  turned  into  summer,  or  early  autumn, 
than  spring,  if  there  is  going  to  be  any  change  of  the 
mortal  conditions.  I  like  settled  weather,  the  calm 
of  that  time  of  life  when  the  sins  and  follies  have  been 
committed,  the  passions  burned  themselves  out,  and  the 
ambitions  frustrated  so  that  they  do  not  bother,  the  as 
pirations  defeated,  the  hopes  brought  low.  Then  you 

20 


A    YEAR    OF    SPRING 

have  some  comfort.     This  turmoil  of  vernal  striving 
makes  me  tired." 

'Yes,  I  see  what  you  mean,"  the  poet  assented. 
"  But  you  cannot  have  the  seasons  out  of  their  order 
in  the  rearrangement  of  the  mortal  conditions.  You 
must  have  spring  and  you  must  have  summer  before 
you  can  have  autumn." 

"  Are  those  the  terms  ?  Then  I  say,  Winter  at  once ! 
Winter  is  bad  enough,  but  I  would  not  go  through 
spring  again  for  any—  In  winter  you  can  get  away 
from  the  cold,  with  a  good,  warm  book,  or  a  sunny 
picture,  or  a  cozy  old  song,  or  a  new  play ;  but  in  spring 
how  will  you  escape  the  rawness  if  you  have  left  off 
your  flannels  and  let  out  the  furnace?  No,  my  dear 
friend,  we  could  not  stand  going  back  to  youth  every 
year.  The  trees  can,  because  they  have  been  used  to 
it  from  the  beginning  of  time,  but  the  men  could  not. 
Even  the  women — ' 

At  this  moment  a  beatific  presence  made  itself 
sensible,  and  the  Easy  Chair  recognized  the  poet's 
Muse,  who  had  come  for  him.  The  poet  put  the  ques 
tion  to  her.  "Young?"  she  said.  "  Why,  you  and  I 
are  always  young,  silly  boy !  Get  your  hat,  and  come 
over  to  Long  Island  City  with  me,  and  see  the  pussy 
willows  along  the  railroad-banks.  The  mosquitoes  are 
beginning  to  sing  in  the  ditches  already." 


Ill 

SCLEROSIS  OF  THE   TASTES 

THE  other  day  one  of  those  convertible  familiars  of 
the  Easy  Chair,  who 

"  Change  and  pass  and  come  again," 

looked  in  upon  it,  after  some  months7  absence,  with 
the  effect  of  having  aged  considerably  in  the  interval. 
But  this  was  only  his  latest  avatar;  he  was  no  older, 
as  he  was  no  younger,  than  before ;  to  support  a  fresh 
character,  he  had  to  put  on  an  appropriate  aspect,  and 
having,  at  former  interviews,  been  a  poet,  a  novelist,  a 
philosopher,  a  reformer,  a  moralist,  he  was  now  merely 
looking  the  part  of  a  veteran  observer,  of  a  psychol 
ogist  grown  gray  in  divining  the  character  of  others 
from  his  own  consciousness. 

"  Have  you  ever  noticed,"  he  began,  "  that  the  first 
things  we  get  stiff  in,  as  we  advance  in  life,  are  our 
tastes?  We  suppose  that  it  is  our  joints  which  feel 
the  premonitions  of  age ;  and  that  because  we  no  longer 
wish  to  dance  or  play  ball  or  sprint  in  college  races 
we  are  in  the  earliest  stage  of  that  sapless  condition 
when  the  hinges  of  the  body  grind  dryly  upon  one  an 
other,  and  we  lose  a  good  inch  of  our  stature,  through 
shrinkage,  though  the  spine  still  holds  us  steadfastly 

upright." 

22 


SCLEKOS1S    OE     THE    TASTES 

"Well,    isn't    that    so?"    the    Easy    Chair    asked, 
tranquilly. 

"  It  may  be  so,  or  it  may  not  be  so,"  the  veteran 
observer  replied.  "  Ultimately,  I  dare  say,  it  is  so. 
But  what  I  wish  to  enforce  is  the  fact  that  before  you 
begin  to  feel  the  faintest  sense  of  stiffening  joints  you 
are  allowing  yourself  to  fall  into  that  voluntary  senes 
cence  which  I  call  getting  stiff  in  the  tastes.  It  is 
something  that  I  think  we  ought  to  guard  ourselves 
against  as  a  sort  of  mental  sclerosis  which  must  end 
fatally  long  before  we  have  reached  the  patriarchal 
age  which  that  unbelieving  believer  Metchnikoff  says 
we  can  attain  if  we  fight  off  physical  sclerosis.  He 
can  only  negatively  teach  us  how  to  do  this,  but  I  main 
tain  we  can  have  each  of  us  in  our  power  the  remedy 
against  stiffening  tastes." 

"  I  don't  see  how,"  the  Easy  Chair  said,  more  to 
provoke  the  sage  to  explanation  than  to  express  dissent, 
"  1  will  teach  you  how,"  he  said,  "  if  you  will  allow 
me  to  make  it  a  personal  matter,  and  use  you  in  illus 
tration." 

"  Why  not  use  yourself  ?" 

"  Because  that  would  be  egotistical,  and  the  prime 
ingredient  of  my  specific  against  getting  stiff  in  the 
tastes  is  that  spiritual  grace  which  is  the  very  anti 
dote,  the  very  antithesis  of  egotism.  Up  to  a  certain 
point,  a  certain  time,  we  are  usefully  employed  in 
cultivating  our  tastes,  in  refining  them,  and  in  defining 
them.  We  cannot  be  too  strenuous  in  defining  them ; 
and,  as  long  as  we  are  young,  the  catholicity  of  youth 
will  preserve  us  from  a  bigoted  narrowness.  In  a»s- 
thetic  matters — and  I  imagine  we  both  understand  that 
we  are  dealing  with  these — the  youngest  youth  has  no 
tastes;  it  has  merely  appetites.  All  is  fish  that  comes 
to  its  net;  if  anything,  it  prefers  the  gaudier  of  the 

23 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

finny  tribes;  it  is  only  when  it  becomes  sophisticated 
that  its  appetites  turn  into  tastes,  and  it  begins  to 
appreciate  the  flavor  of  that  diseased  but  pearl-bearing 
species  of  oyster  which  we  call  genius,  because  we  have 
no  accurate  name  for  it.  With  the  appreciation  of  this 
flavor  comes  the  overpowering  desire  for  it,  the  inces 
sant  and  limitless  search  for  it.  To  the  desire  for  it 
whole  literatures  owe  their  continued  existence,  since, 
except  for  the  universal  genius-hunger  of  youth,  the 
classics  of  almost  all  languages  would  have  perished 
long  ago.  When  indiscriminate  and  omnivorous  youth 
has  explored  those  vast  and  mostly  lifeless  seas,  it  has 
found  that  the  diseased  oyster  which  bears  the  pearls 
is  the  rarest  object  in  nature.  But  having  once  formed 
the  taste  for  it,  youth  will  have  no  other  flavor,  and  it 
is  at  this  moment  that  its  danger  of  hardening  into 
premature  age  begins.  The  conceit  of  having  recog 
nized  genius  takes  the  form  of  a  bigoted  denial  of  its 
existence  save  in  the  instances  recognized.  This  con 
ceit  does  not  admit  the  possibility  of  error  or  omission 
in  the  search,  and  it  does  not  allow  that  the  diseased 
oyster  can  transmit  its  pearl-bearing  qualities  and  its 
peculiar  flavors ;  so  that  the  attitude  of  aging  youth,  in 
the  stiffening  of  its  tastes,  is  one  of  rejection  toward 
all  new  bivalves,  or,  not  to  be  tediously  metaphorical, 
books." 

The  veteran  observer  fell  silent  at  this  point,  and 
the  Easy  Chair  seized  the  occasion  to  remark :  "  Yes, 
there  is  something  in  what  you  say.  But  this  stiffening 
of  the  tastes,  this  sclerosis  of  the  mind,  is  hardly  an 
infectious  disease — " 

"  Ah,  but  it  is  infectious,"  the  veteran  observer  ex 
claimed,  rousing  himself,  "  infections  as  far  as  the 
victim  can  possibly  make  it  so.  He  wishes  ^ nothing 
so  much  as  to  impart  his  opinions  in  all  their  rigid- 

24 


SCLEROSIS    OF     THE    TASTES 

ity  to  everybody  else.  Take  your  own  case,  for  in 
stance — ' 

"  No,  we  would  rather  not,"  the  Easy  Chair  inter 
posed. 

"  But  you  must  make  the  sacrifice,"  the  veteran  ob 
server  persisted.  "  You  will  allow  that  you  are  ex 
tremely  opinionated  ?" 

"  Not  at  all." 

''  Well,  then,  that  you  are  devoutly  conscientious  in 
the  tenure  of  your  aesthetic  beliefs  ?" 

"  Something  like  that,  yes." 

"  And  you  cannot  deny  that  in  times  past  you  have 
tried  your  best  to  make  others  think  with  you  2" 

"  It  was  our  duty." 

"  Well,  let  it  pass  for  that.  It  amounted  to  an  ef 
fort  to  make  your  mental  sclerosis  infectious,  and  it 
was  all  the  worse  because,  in  you,  the  stiffening  of  the 
tastes  had  taken  the  form  of  aversions  rather  than 
preferences.  You  did  not  so  much  wish  your  readers 
to  like  your  favorite  authors  as  to  hate  all  the  others. 
At  the  time  when  there  was  a  fad  for  making  lists  of 
The  Hundred  Best  Authors,  I  always  wondered  that 
you  didn't  put  forth  some  such  schedule." 

"  We  had  the  notion  of  doing  something  of  the  kind," 
the  Easy  Chair  confessed,  "  but  we  could  not  think  of 
more  than  ten  or  a  dozen  really  first-rate  authors,  and 
if  we  had  begun  to  compile  a  list  of  the  best  authors 
we  should  have  had  to  leave  out  most  of  their  works. 
Nearly  all  the  classics  would  have  gone  by  the  board. 
What  havoc  we  should  have  made  with  the  British 
poets!  The  Elizabethan  dramatists  would  mostly  have 
fallen  under  the  ban  of  our  negation,  to  a  play,  if  not 
to  a  man.  Chaucer,  but  for  a  few  poems,  is  impossible ; 
Spenser's  poetry  is  generally  duller  than  the  Presi 
dents'  messages  before  Mr.  Roosevelt's  time;  Milton 
3  25 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

is  a  trial  of  the  spirit  in  three-fourths  of  his  verse; 
Wordsworth  is  only  not  so  bad  as  Byron,  who  thought 
him  so  much  worse;  Shakespeare  himself,  when  he  is 
reverently  supposed  not  to  be  Shakespeare,  is  reading 
for  martyrs ;  Dante's  science  and  politics  outweigh  his 
poetry  a  thousandfold,  and  so  on  through  the  whole 
catalogue.  Among  the  novelists — " 

"  No,  don't  begin  on  the  novelists !  Every  one  knows 
your  heresies  there,  and  would  like  to  burn  you  along 
with  the  romances  which  I've  no  doubt  you  would  still 
commit  to  the  flames.  I  see  you  are  the  Bourbon  of 
criticism ;  you  have  learned  nothing  and  forgotten  noth 
ing.  But  why  don't  you  turn  your  adamantine  im 
mutability  to  some  practical  account,  and  give  the 
world  a  list  of  The  Hundred  Worst  Books?" 

"  Because  a  hundred  books  out  of  the  worst  would 
be  a  drop  out  of  the  sea ;  there  would  remain  an  im 
measurable  welter  of  badness,  of  which  we  are  now 
happily  ignorant,  and  from  which  we  are  safe,  as  long 
as  our  minds  are  not  turned  to  it  by  examples." 

"  Ah,"  our  visitor  said,  "  I  see  that  you  are  afraid 
to  confess  yourself  the  popular  failure  as  a  critic  which 
you  are.  You  are  afraid  that  if  you  made  a  list  of 
The  Hundred  Worst  Books  you  would  send  the  classes 
to  buying  them  in  the  most  expensive  binding,  and  the 
masses  to  taking  them  out  of  all  the  public  libraries." 
"  There  is  something  in  what  you  say,"  the  Easy 
Chair  confessed.  "  Our  popular  failure  as  a  critic  is 
notorious ;  it  cannot  be  denied.  The  stamp  of  our  dis 
approval  at  one  time  gave  a  whole  order  of  fiction  a 
currency  that  was  not  less  than  torrential.  The  flood 
of  romantic  novels  which  passed  over  the  land,  and 
which  is  still  to  be  traced  in  the  tatters  of  the  rag-doll 
heroes  and  heroines  caught  in  the  memories  of  readers 
along  its  course,  was  undoubtedly  the  effect  of  our 

26 


SCLEROSIS    OF     THE    TASTES 

adverse  criticism.  No,  we  could  not  in  conscience  com 
pile  and  publish  a  list  of  The  Hundred  Worst  Books; 
it  would  be  contrary,  for  the  reasons  you  give,  to  public 
morals." 

"  And  don't  you  think,"  the  observer  said,  with  a 
Socratic  subtlety  that  betrayed  itself  in  his  gleaming 
eye,  in  the  joyous  hope  of  seeing  his  victim  fall  into  the 
pit  that  his  own  admissions  had  digged  for  him,  "  and 
don't  you  think  that  it  would  also  bring  to  you  the 
unpleasant  consciousness  of  having  stiffened  in  your 
tastes  ?" 

"  It  might  up  to  a  certain  point,"  we  consented. 
"But  we  should  prefer  to  call  it  confirmed  in  our 
convictions.  Wherever  we  have  liked  or  disliked  in 
literature  it  has  been  upon  grounds  hardly  distinguish 
able  from  moral  grounds.  Bad  art  is  a  vice ;  untruth 
to  nature  is  the  eighth  of  the  seven  deadly  sins ;  a  false 
school  in  literature  is  a  seminary  of  crime.  We  are 
speaking  largely,  of  course — 

"  It  certainly  sounds  rather  tall,"  our  friend  sar 
castically  noted,  "  and  it  sounds  very  familiar." 

'  Yes,"  we  went  on,  "  all  the  ascertained  veracities 
are  immutable.  One  holds  to  them,  or,  rather,  they  hold 
to  one,  with  an  indissoluble  tenacity.  But  convictions 
are  in  the  region  of  character  and  are  of  remote  origin. 
In  their  safety  one  indulges  one's  self  in  expectations,  in 
tolerances,  and  these  rather  increase  with  the  lapse  of 
time.  We  should  say  that  your  theory  of  the  stiffening 
tastes  is  applicable  to  the  earlier  rather  than  the  later 
middle  life.  We  should  say  that  the  tastes  if  they 
stiffen  at  the  one  period  limber  at  the  other;  their 
forbidding  rigidity  is  succeeded  by  an  acquiescent  sup 
pleness.  One  is  aware  of  an  involuntary  hospitality 
toward  a  good  many  authors  whom  one  would  once  have 
turned  destitute  from  the  door,  or  with  a  dole  of  Or- 

27 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

ganized  Charity  meal-tickets  at  the  best.  But  in  that 
inaturer  time  one  hesitates,  and  possibly  ends  by  ask 
ing  the  stranger  in,  especially  if  he  is  young,  or  even 
if  he  is  merely  new,  and  setting  before  him  the  cold 
potato  of  a  qualified  approval.  One  says  to  him :  (  You 
know  I  don't  think  you  are  the  real  thing  quite,  but 
taking  you  on  your  own  ground  you  are  not  so  bad. 
Come,  you  shall  have  a  night's  lodging  at  least,  and  if 
you  improve,  if  you  show  a  tendency  to  change  in  the 
right  direction,  there  is  no  telling  but  you  may  be  al 
lowed  to  stay  the  week.  But  you  must  not  presume; 
you  must  not  take  this  frosty  welcome  for  an  effect  of 
fire  from  the  hearth  where  we  sit  with  our  chosen 
friends.'  Ten  to  one  the  stranger  does  not  like  this 
sort  of  talk,  and  goes  his  way — the  wrong  way.  But, 
at  any  rate,  one  has  shown  an  open  mind,  a  liberal 
spirit;  one  has  proved  that  one  has  not  stiffened  in 
one's  tastes;  that  one  can  make  hopeful  allowances  in 
hopeful  cases." 

"  Such  as  ?"  the  observer  insinuated. 

"  Such  as  do  not  fit  the  point  exactly.  Very  likely 
the  case  may  be  that  of  an  old  or  elderly  author.  It 
has  been  only  within  a  year  or  two  that  we  have  formed 
the  taste  for  an  English  writer,  no  longer  living,  save 
in  his  charming  books.  James  Payn  was  a  favorite 
with  many  in  the  middle  Victorian  period,  but  it  is 
proof  of  the  flexibility  of  our  tastes  that  we  have  only 
just  come  to  him.  After  shunning  Anthony  Trollope 
for  fifty  years,  we  came  to  him,  almost  as  with  a  rush, 
long  after  our  half-century  was  past.  Now,  James 
Payn  is  the  solace  of  our  autumnal  equinox,  and 
Anthony  Trollope  we  read  with  a  constancy  and  a  re 
currence  surpassed  only  by  our  devotion  to  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  the  fiction  of  the  Divine  Jane;  and  Jane 
Austen  herself  was  not  an  idol  of  our  first  or  even  our 

28 


SCLEROSIS    OF     THE    TASTES 

second  youth,  but  became  the  cult  of  a  time  when  if 
our  tastes  had  stiffened  we  could  have  cared  only  for 
the  most  modern  of  the  naturalists,  and  those  prefer 
ably  of  the  Russian  and  Spanish  schools.  A  signal 
proof  of  their  continued  suppleness  came  but  the  other 
day  when  we  acquainted  ourselves  with  the  work  of  the 
English  novelist,  Mr.  Percy  White,  and  it  was  the  more 
signal  because  we  perceived  that  he  had  formed  him 
self  upon  a  method  of  Thackeray's,  which  recalled  that 
master,  as  the  occasional  aberrations  of  Payn  and  Trol- 
lope  recall  a  manner  of  him.  But  it  is  Thackeray's 
most  artistic  method  which  Mr.  White  recalls  in  his 
studies  of  scamps  and  snobs ;  he  allows  them,  as  Thack 
eray  allows  Barry  Lyndon  and  the  rest,  to  tell  their 
own  stories,  and  in  their  unconsciousness  of  their  own 
natures  he  finds  play  for  an  irony  as  keen  and  graphic 
as  anything  in  fiction.  He  deals  with  the  actual  Eng 
lish  world,  and  the  pleasure  he  gave  us  was  such  as 
to  make  us  resolve  to  return  to  Thackeray's  vision  of 
his  own  contemporaneous  English  world  at  the  first 
opportunity.  We  have  not  done  so  yet ;  but  after  we 
have  fortified  ourselves  with  a  course  of  Scott  and 
Dickens,  we  are  confident  of  being  able  to  bear  up 
under  the  heaviest-handed  satire  of  Vanity  Fair.  As 
for  The  Luck  of  Barry  Lyndon  and  The  Yellow-plush 
Papers,  and  such  like,  they  have  never  ceased  to  have 
their  prime  delight  for  us.  But  their  proportion  is 
quite  large  enough  to  survive  from  any  author  for  any 
reader;  as  we  are  often  saying,  it  is  only  in  bits  that 
authors  survive ;  their  resurrection  is  not  by  the  whole 
body,  but  here  and  there  a  ]>erfeeter  fragment.  Most 
of  our  present  likes  and  dislikes  are  of  the  period 
when  you  say  people  begin  to  stiffen  in  their  tastes. 
We  could  count  the  authors  by  the  score  who  have  be 
come  our  favorites  in  that  period,  and  those  we  have 

29 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

dropped  are  almost  as  many.  It  is  not  necessary  to  say 
who  they  all  are,  but  we  may  remark  that  we  still  read, 
and  read,  and  read  again  the  poetry  of  Keats,  and  that 
we  no  longer  read  the  poetry  of  Alexander  Smith. 
But  it  is  through  the  growth  of  the  truly  great  upon 
his  mature  perception  that  the  aging  reader  finds  novel 
excellences  in  them.  It  was  only  the  other  day  that 
we  picked  up  Hawthorne's  Scarlet  Letter,  and  real 
ized  in  it,  from  a  chance  page  or  two,  a  sardonic 
quality  of  insurpassable  subtlety  and  reach.  This 
was  something  quite  new  to  us  in  it.  We  had 
known  the  terrible  pathos  of  the  story,  its  immeasur 
able  tragedy,  but  that  deadly,  quiet,  pitiless,  freezing 
irony  of  a  witness  holding  himself  aloof  from  its  course, 
and  losing,  for  that  page  or  two,  the  moralist  in  the 
mere  observer,  was  a  revelation  that  had  come  to  that 
time  of  life  in  us  when  you  think  the  tastes  stiffen 
and  one  refuses  new  pleasures  because  they  are  new.'7 

Our  visitor  yawned  visibly,  audibly.  "  And  what 
is  all  this  you  have  been  saying?  You  have  made 
yourself  out  an  extraordinary  example  of  what  may  be 
done  by  guarding  against  the  stiffening  of  the  tastes 
after  the  end  of  second  youth.  But  have  you  proved 
that  there  is  no  such  danger  ?  Or  was  your  idea  simply 
to  celebrate  yourself?  At  moments  I  fancied  some 
thing  like  that." 

We  owned  the  stroke  with  an  indulgent  smile.  "  No, 
not  exactly  that.  The  truth  is  we  have  been  very  much 
interested  by  your  notion — if  it  was  yours,  which  is 
not  altogether  probable — and  we  have  been  turning  its 
light  upon  our  own  experience,  in  what  we  should  not 
so  much  call  self-celebration  as  self-exploitation.  One 
uses  one's  self  as  the  stuff  for  knowledge  of  others,  or 
for  the  solution  of  any  given  problem.  There  is  no 
other  way  of  getting  at  the  answers  to  the  questions." 


SCLEROSIS    OF     THE    TASTES 

"  And  what  is  your  conclusion  as  to  my  notion,  if 
it  is  mine?"  the  veteran  observer  asked,  with  su 
periority. 

"  That  there  is  nothing  in  it.  The  fact  is  that  the 
tastes  are  never  so  tolerant,  so  liberal,  so  generous,  so 
supple  as  they  are  at  that  time  of  life  when  they  begin, 
according  to  your  notion,  to  stiffen,  to  harden,  to  con 
tract.  We  have  in  this  very  period  formed  a  new 
taste — or  taken  a  new  lease  of  an  old  one — for  reading 
history,  which  had  been  dormant  all  through  our  first 
and  second  youth.  We  expect  to  see  the  time  when 
we  shall  read  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  with  avidity. 
We  may  not  improbably  find  a  delight  in  statistics; 
there  must  be  a  hidden  charm  in  them.  We  may  even 
form  a  relish  for  the  vagaries  of  pseudo-psychology — " 
At  this  point  we  perceived  the  veteran  observer  had 
vanished  and  that  we  were  talking  to  ourselves. 


IV 

THE  PRACTICES  AND  PRECEPTS  OF  VAUDEVILLE 

A  FRIEND  of  the  Easy  Chair  came  in  the  other  day 
after  a  frost  from  the  magazine  editor  which  had 
nipped  a  tender  manuscript  in  its  bloom,  and  was  re 
ceived  with  the  easy  hospitality  we  are  able  to  show 
the  rejected  from  a  function  involving  neither  power 
nor  responsibility. 

"  Ah !"  we  breathed,  sadly,  at  the  sight  of  the  wilted 
offering  in  the  hands  of  our  friend.  "  What  is  it  he 
won't  take  now?" 

"  Wait  till  I  get  my  second  wind,"  the  victim  of 
unrequited  literature  answered,  dropping  into  the  Easy 
Chair,  from  which  the  occupant  had  risen;  and  he 
sighed,  pensively,  "  I  felt  so  sure  I  had  got  him  this 
time."  He  closed  his  eyes,  and  leaned  his  head  back 
against  the  uncomfortably  carven  top  of  the  Easy  Chair. 
It  was  perhaps  his  failure  to  find  rest  in  it  that  restored 
him  to  animation.  "  It  is  a  little  thing,"  he  murmured, 
"  on  the  decline  of  the  vaudeville." 

"  The  decline  of  the  vaudeville  ?"  we  repeated, 
wrinkling  our  forehead  in  grave  misgiving.  Then, 
for  want  of  something  better,  we  asked,  "  Do  you  think 
that  is  a  very  dignified  subject  for  the  magazine  ?" 

"  Why,  bless  my  soul !"  the  rejected  one  cried,  start 
ing  somewhat  violently  forward,  "  what  is  your  maga 
zine  itself  but  vaudeville,  with  your  contributors  all 
doing  their  stunts  of  fiction,  or  poetry,  or  travel,  or 

32 


THE    PRACTICES    OF    VAUDEVILLE 

sketches  <>f  life,  or  articles  of  popular  science  and  so 
ciological  interest,  and  I  don't  know  what  all !  What 
are  your  illustrations  but  the  moving  pictures  of  the 
kalatechnoscopc !  Why,"  he  said,  with  inspiration, 
k'  what  are  you  yourself  but  a  species  of  Chaser  that 
comes  at  the  end  of  the  show,  and  helps  clear  the  ground 
for  the  next  month's  performance  by  tiring  out  the 
lingering  readers  ?" 

"  You   don't   think,"   we   suggested,    "  you're   being 
rather  unpleasant  ?" 

Our  friend  laughed  harshly,  and  we  were  glad  to 
see  him  restored  to  so  much  cheerfulness,  at  any  rate. 
"  I  think  the  notion  is  a  pretty  good  fit,  though  if  you 
don't  like  to  wear  it  I  don't  insist.  Why  should  you 
object  to  being  likened  to  those  poor  fellows  who  come 
last  on  the  programme  at  the  vaudeville  ?  Very  often 
they  are  as  good  as  the  others,  and  sometimes,  when  I 
have  determined  to  get  my  five  hours'  enjoyment  to  the 
last  moment  before  six  o'clock,  I  have  had  my  reward 
in  something  unexpectedly  delightful  in  the  work  of  the 
Chasers.  I  have  got  into  close  human  relations  with 
them,  I  and  the  half-dozen  brave  spirits  who  have 
stuck  it  out  with  me,  while  the  ushers  went  impatiently 
about,  clacking  the  seats  back,  and  picking  up  the  pro 
grammes  and  lost  articles  under  them.  I  have  had  the 
same  sense  of  kindly  comradery  with  you,  and  now 
and  then  my  patience  has  been  rewarded  by  you,  just 
as  it  has  been  by  the  Chasers  at  the  vaudeville,  and 
I've  said  so  to  people.  I've  said :  '  You're  wrong  to  put 
down  the  magazine  the  way  most  of  you  do  before  you 
get  to  those  departments  at  the  end.  Sometimes  there 
are  quite  good  things  in  them.'  " 

"  Really,"  said  the  unreal  editor,  "  you  seem  to  have 
had  these  remarks  left  over  from  your  visit  to  the  real 
editor.  We  advise  you  to  £0  back  and  repeat  them. 

33' 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

They  may  cause  him  to  revise  his  opinion  of  your  con 
tribution." 

"  It's  no  use  my  going  back.  I  read  finality  in  his 
eye  before  I  left  him,  and  I  feel  that  no  compliment, 
the  most  fulsome,  would  move  him.  Don't  turn  me 
out!  I  take  it  all  back  about  your  being  a  Chaser. 
You  are  the  first  act  on  the  bill  for  me.  I  read  the 
magazine  like  a  Chinese  book — from  the  back.  I  al 
ways  begin  with  the  Easy  Chair." 

"  Ah,  now  you  are  talking,"  we  said,  and  we  thought 
it  no  more  than  human  to  ask,  "  What  is  it  you  have 
been  saying  about  the  vaudeville,  anyway  ?" 

The  rejected  one  instantly  unfolded  his  manuscript. 
"  I  will  just  read—" 

"  No,  no !"  we  interposed.  "  Tell  us  about  it — give 
us  the  general  drift.  We  never  can  follow  anything 
read  to  us." 

The  other  looked  incredulous,  but  he  was  not  master 
of  the  situation,  and  he  resigned  himself  to  the  sec 
ondary  pleasure  of  sketching  the  paper  he  woiild  so 
much  rather  have  read. 

"Why,  you  know  what  an  inveterate  vaudeville- 
goer  I  have  always  been  ?" 

We  nodded.  "  We  know  how  you  are  always  try 
ing  to  get  us  to  neglect  the  masterpieces  of  our  un 
dying  modern  dramatists,  on  the  legitimate  stage,  and 
go  with  you  to  see  the  ridiculous  stunts  you  de 
light  in." 

"Well,  it  comes  to  the  same  thing.  I  am  an  in 
veterate  vaudeville-goer,  for  the  simple  reason  that  I 
find  better  acting  in  the  vaudeville,  and  better  drama, 
on  the  whole,  than  you  ever  get,  or  you  generally  get, 
on  your  legitimate  stage.  I  don't  know  why  it  is  so 
very  legitimate.  I  have  no  doubt  but  the  vaudeville, 
or  continuous  variety  performance,  is  the  older,  the 

34 


THE    PRACTICES    OF    VAUDEVILLE 

more  authentic  form  of  histrionic  art.  Before  the 
Greek  dramatists,  or  the  longer-winded  Sanskrit  play 
wrights,  or  the  exquisitely  conventionalized  Chinese 
and  Japanese  and  Javanese  were  heard  of,  it  is  prob 
able  that  there  were  companies  of  vaudeville  artists 
going  about  the  country  and  doing  the  turns  that  they 
had  invented  themselves,  and  getting  and  giving  the 
joy  that  comes  of  voluntary  and  original  work,  just  as 
they  are  now.  And  in  the  palmiest  days  of  the  Greek 
tragedy  or  the  Roman  comedy,  there  were,  of  course, 
variety  shows  all  over  Athens  and  Home  where  you 
could  have  got  twice  the  amusement  for  half  the  money 
that  you  would  at  the  regular  theatres.  While  the 
openly  wretched  and  secretly  rebellious  actors  whom 
Euripides  and  Terence  had  cast  for  their  parts  were 
going  through  roles  they  would  never  have  chosen  them 
selves,  the  Avilding  heirs  of  art  at  the  vaudeville  were 
giving  things  of  their  own  imagination,  which  they  had 
worked  up  from  some  vague  inspiration  into  a  sketch 
of  artistic  effect.  No  manager  had  foisted  upon  them 
his  ideals  of  '  what  the  people  wanted,'  none  had 
shaped  their  performance  according  to  his  own  notion 
of  histrionics.  They  had  each  come  to  him  with  his  or 
her  little  specialty,  that  would  play  fifteen  or  twenty 
minutes,  and  had,  after  trying  it  before  him,  had  it 
rejected  or  accepted  in  its  entirety.  Then,  author  and 
actor  in  one,  they  had  each  made  his  or  her  appeal  to 
the  public." 

"  There  were  no  hers  on  the  stage  in  those  days,"  we 
interposed. 

"  No  matter,"  the  rejected  contributor  retorted. 
"  There  are  now,  and  that  is  the  important  matter. 
I  am  coming  to  the  very  instant  of  actuality,  to  the 
show  which  I  saw  yesterday,  and  which  I  should  have 
brought  my  paper  down  to  mention  if  it  had  been  ac- 

35 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

cepted."  He  drew  a  long  breath,  and  said,  with  a 
dreamy  air  of  retrospect :  "  It  is  all  of  a  charming 
unity,  a  tradition  unbroken  from  the  dawn  of  civil 
ization.  When  I  go  to  a  variety  show,  and  drop  my 
ticket  into  the  chopping-box  at  the  door,  and  fastidi 
ously  choose  my  unreserved  seat  in  the  best  place  I 
can  get,  away  from  interposing  posts  and  persons,  and 
settle  down  to  a  long  afternoon's  delight,  I  like  to  fancy 
myself  a  far-fetched  phantom  of  the  past,  who  used  to 
do  the  same  thing  at  Thebes  or  Nineveh  as  many 
thousand  years  ago  as  you  please.  I  like  to  think  that 
I  too  am  an  unbroken  tradition,  and  my  pleasure  will 
be  such  as  shaped  smiles  immemorially  gone  to 
dust." 

We  made  our  reflection  that  this  passage  was  prob 
ably  out  of  the  rejected  contribution,  but  we  did  not 
say  anything,  and  our  visitor  went  on. 

"  And  what  a  lot  of  pleasure  I  did  get,  yesterday,  for 
my  fifty  cents !  There  were  twelve  stunts  on  the  bill, 
not  counting  the  kalatechnoscope,  and  I  got  in  before 
the  first  was  over,  so  that  I  had  the  immediate  ad 
vantage  of  seeing  a  gifted  fellow-creature  lightly  swing 
ing  himself  between  two  chairs  which  had  their  outer 
legs  balanced  on  the  tops  of  caraffes  full  of  water,  and 
making  no  more  of  the  feat  than  if  it  were  a  walk  in 
the  Park  or  down  Fifth  Avenue.  How  I  respected  that 
man!  What  study  had  gone  to  the  perfection  of  that 
act,  and  the  others  that  he  equally  made  nothing  of! 
He  was  simply  billed  as  '  Equilibrist,'  when  his  name 
ought  to  have  been  blazoned  in  letters  a  foot  high  if 
they  were  in  any  wise  to  match  his  merit.  He  was 
followed  by  '  Twin  Sisters,'  who,  as  '  Refined  Singers 
and  Dancers,'  appeared  in  sweeping  confections  of 
white  silk,  with  deeply  drooping,  widely  spreading 

white  hats,  and  Ion  "'-fringed  white  parasols  heaped  with 

36 


THE    PRACTICES    OF    VAUDEVILLE 

artificial  roses,  and  sang  a  little  tropical  romance,  whose 
burden  was 

'  Under  the  bamboo-tree/ 

brought  in  at  unexpected  intervals.     They  also  danced 
this  romance  with  languid  undulations,  and  before  you 
could  tell  how  or  why,  they  had  disappeared  and  re 
appeared  in  short  green  skirts,  and  then  shorter  white 
skirts,  with  steps  and  stops  appropriate  to  their  cos 
tumes,  but  always,  I  am  bound  to  say,  of  the  refine 
ment  promised.     I  can't  tell  you  in  what  their  refine 
ment  consisted,  but  I  am  sure  it  was  there,  just  as  I 
am  sure  of  the  humor  of  the  two  brothers  who  next 
appeared  as  '  Singing  and  Dancing  Comedians  '  of  the 
coon  type.     I  know  that  they  sang  and  they  danced, 
and  worked  sable  pleasantries  upon  one  another  with 
the  help  of  the  pianist,  who  often  helps  out  the  dialogue 
of  the  stage  in  vaudeville.     They  were  not  so  good  as 
the  next  people,  a  jealous  husband  and  a  pretty  wife, 
who  seized  every  occasion  in  the  slight  drama  of  i  The 
Singing  Lesson,'  and  turned   it  to  account  in  giving 
their  favorite  airs.     I  like  to  have  a  husband  disguise 
himself  as  a  German  maestro,  and  musically  make  out 
why  his  wife  is  so  zealous  in  studying  with  him,  and 
I  do  not  mind  in  the  least  having  the  sketch  close  with 
out  reason:   it   leaves   something  to  my   imagination. 
Two  of  '  America's   Leading  Banjoists '  charmed  me 
next,  for,   after  all,   there   is  nothing  like  the  banjo. 
If  one  does  not  one's  self  rejoice  in  its  plunking,  there 
are  others  who  do,  and  that  is  enough  for  my  altruistic 
spirit.      Besides,   it   is   America's  leading  instrument, 
and  those  who  excel  upon  it  appeal  to  the  patriotism 
which  is  never  really  dormant  in  us.     Its  close  asso 
ciation  with  color  in  our  civilization  seemed  to  render 
it  the  fitting  prelude  of  the  next  act,  which  consisted 

37 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

of  '  Monologue  and  Songs '  by  a  divine  creature  in 
lampblack,  a  shirt-waist  worn  outside  his  trousers,  and 
an  exaggerated  development  of  stomach.  What  did  he 
say,  what  did  he  sing?  I  don't  know;  I  only  know 
that  it  rested  the  soul  and  brain,  that  it  soothed  the 
conscience,  and  appeased  the  hungerings  of  ambition. 
Just  to  sit  there  and  listen  to  that  unalloyed  nonsense 
was  better  than  to  '  sport  with  Amaryllis  in  the  shade, 
or  with  the  tangles  of  Nesera's  hair/  or  to  be  the  object 
of  a  votive  dinner,  or  to  be  forgiven  one's  sins ;  there  is 
no  such  complete  purgation  of  care  as  one  gets  from 
the  real  Afro-American  when  he  is  unreal,  and  lures 
one  completely  away  from  life,  while  professing  to  give 
his  impressions  of  it.  You,  with  your  brute  prefer 
ences  for  literality,  will  not  understand  this,  and  I 
suppose  you  would  say  I  ought  to  have  got  a  purer 
and  higher  joy  out  of  the  little  passage  of  drama,  which 
followed,  and  I  don't  know  but  I.  did.  It  was  nothing 
but  the  notion  of  a  hapless,  half-grown  girl,  who  has 
run  away  from  the  poorhouse  for  a  half-holiday,  and 
brings  up  in  the  dooryard  of  an  old  farmer  of  the 
codger  type,  who  knew  her  father  and  mother.  She 
at  once  sings,  one  doesn't  know  why,  '  Oh,  dear,  what 
can  the  matter  be/  and  she  takes  out  of  her  poor  little 
carpet-bag  a  rag-doll,  and  puts  it  to  sleep  with  e  By 
low,  baby,'  and  the  old  codger  puts  the  other  dolls 
to  sleep,  nodding  his  head,  and  kicking  his  foot  out  in 
time,  and  he  ends  by  offering  that  poor  thing  a  home 
with  him.  If  he  had  not  done  it,  I  do  not  know  how 
I  could  have  borne  it,  for  my  heart  was  in  my  throat 
with  pity,  and  the  tears  were  in  my  eyes.  Good 
heavens !  What  simple  instruments  we  men  are !  The 
falsest  note  in  all  Hamlet  is  in  those  words  of  his  to 
Guildenstern :  '  You  would  play  upon  me ;  yon  would 
seem  to  know  my  stops ;  you  would  pluck  out  the  heart 


THE    PRACTICES    OF    VAUDEVILLE 

of  my  mystery;  you  would  sound  me  from  my  lowest 
note  to  the  top  of  my  compass.  .  .  .  'S  blood,  do  you 
think  I  am  easier  to  be  played  on  than  a  pipe  ¥  Guild- 
enstern  ought  to  have  said :  i  Much,  my  lord !  Here  is 
an  actor  who  has  been  summering  in  the  country,  and 
has  caught  a  glimpse  of  pathetic  fact  commoner  than 
the  dust  in  the  road,  and  has  built  it  up  in  a  bit  of 
drama  as  artless  as  a  child  would  fancy,  and  yet  it 
swells  your  heart  and  makes  you  cry.  Your  mystery? 
You  have  no  mystery  to  an  honest  man.  It  is  only 
fakes  and  frauds  who  do  not  understand  the  soul.  The 
simplest  willow  whistle  is  an  instrument  more  complex 
than  man.'  That  is  what  I  should  have  said  in  Guild- 
en  stern's  place  if  I  had  had  Hamlet  with  me  there  at 
the  vaudeville  show. 

"  In  the  pretty  language  of  the  playbill,"  the  con 
tributor  went  on,  "  this  piece  was  called  '  A  Pastoral 
Playlet,'  and  I  should  have  been  willing  to  see  '  Mandy 
Hawkins '  over  again,  instead  of  the  '  Seals  and  Sea 
Lions,'  next  placarded  at  the  sides  of  the  curtain  im 
mediately  lifted  on  them.  Perhaps  I  have  seen  too 
much  of  seals,  but  I  find  the  range  of  their  accomplish 
ments  limited,  and  their  impatience  for  fish  and  lump 
sugar  too  frankly  greedy  before  and  after  each  act. 
Their  banjo-playing  is  of  a  most  casual  and  irrelevant 
sort;  they  ring  bells,  to  be  sure;  in  extreme  cases  they 
fire  small  cannon;  and  their  feat  of  balancing  large 
and  little  balls  on  their  noses  is  beyond  praise.  But  it 
may  be  that  the  difficulties  overcome  are  too  obvious  in 
their  instances;  I  find  myself  holding  rny  breath,  and 
helping  them  along  too  strenuously  for  my  comfort.  I 
am  always  glad  when  the  curtain  goes  down  on  them; 
their  mere  flumping  about  the  stage  makes  me  un 
happy;  but  they  are  not  so  bad,  after  all,  as  trained 
dogs.  They  were  followed  by  three  '  Artistic  Euro- 

39 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

pean  Acrobats/  who  compensated  and  consoled  me  for 
the  seals,  by  the  exquisite  ease  with  which  they  wrought 
the  impossibilities  of  their  art,  in  the  familiar  sack- 
coats  and  top-coats  of  every  day.  I  really  prefer  tights 
and  spangles,  but  I  will  not  refuse  impossibilities  sim 
ply  because  they  are  performed,  as  our  diplomats  are 
instructed  to  appear  at  European  courts,  in  the  ordinary 
dress  of  a  gentleman;  it  may  even  add  a  poignancy  to 
the  pleasure  I  own  so  reluctantly. 

"  There  came  another  pair  of  '  Singers  and  Dancers/ 
and  then  a  '  Trick  Cyclist/  but  really  I  cannot  stand 
trick  cycling,  now  that  plain  cycling,  glory  be!  has  so 
nearly  gone  out.  As  soon  as  the  cyclist  began  to  make 
his  wheel  rear  up  on  its  hind  leg  and  carry  him  round 
the  stage  in  that  posture,  I  went  away.  But  I  had 
had  enough  without  counting  him,  though  I  left  the 
kalatechnoscope,  with  its  shivering  and  shimmering 
unseen.  I  had  had  my  fill  of  pleasure,  rich  and  pure, 
such  as  I  could  have  got  at  no  legitimate  theatre  in 
town,  and  I  came  away  opulently  content." 

We  reflected  awhile  before  we  remarked :  "  Then  I 
don't  see  what  you  have  to  complain  of  or  to  write  of. 
Where  does  the  decline  of  the  vaudeville  come  in?" 

"  Oh/'  the  rejected  contributor  said,  with  a  laugh, 
"  I  forgot  that.  It's  still  so  good,  when  compared  with 
the  mechanical  drama  of  the  legitimate  theatre,  that  I 
don't  know  whether  I  can  make  out  a  case  against  it 
now.  But  I  think  I  can,  both  in  quality  and  quantity. 
I  think  the  change  began  insidiously  to  steal  upon  the 
variety  show  with  the  increasing  predominance  of  short 
plays.  Since  they  were  short,  I  should  not  have  minded 
them  so  much,  but  they  were  always  so  bad!  Still,  I 
could  go  out,  when  they  came  on,  and  return  for  the 
tramp  magician,  or  the  comic  musician,  who  played 
upon  joints  of  stovepipe  and  the  legs  of  reception-chairs 

40 


THE    PRACTICES    OF    VAUDEVILLE 

and  the  like,  and  scratched  matches  on  his  two  days' 
beard,  and  smoked  a  plaintive  air  on  a  cigarette.  But 
when  the  'playlets'  began  following  one  another  in 
unbroken  succession,  I  did  not  know  what  to  do.  Al 
most  before  I  was  aware  of  their  purpose  three  of  the 
leading  vaudeville  houses  threw  off  the  mask,  and  gave 
plays  that  took  up  the  whole  afternoon;  and  though 
they  professed  TO  intersperse  the  acts  with  what  they 
called  'big  vaudeville,'  I  could  not  be  deceived,  and 
I  simply  stopped  going.  When  I  want  to  see  a  four- 
act  play,  I  will  go  to  the  legitimate  theatre,  and  see 
something  that  I  can  smell,  too.  The  influence  of  the 
vaudeville  has,  on  the  whole,  been  so  elevating  and 
refining  that  its  audiences  cannot  stand  either  the  im 
purity  or  the  iml  ecility  of  the  fashionable  drama.  But 
now  the  vaudeville  itself  is  beginning  to  decline  in 
quality  as  well  as  quantity." 

"  Not  toward  immodesty  ?" 

"No,  not  so  much  that.  But  the  fine  intellectual 
superiority  of  the  continuous  performance  is  begin 
ning  to  suffer  contamination  from  the  plays  where 
there  are  waits  between  the  acts.  I  spoke  just  now 
of  the  tramp  magician,  but  I  see  him  no  longer  at  the 
variety  houses.  The  comic  musician  is  of  the  rarest 
occurrence ;  during  the  whole  season  I  have  as  yet  heard 
no  cornet  solo  on  a  revolver  or  a  rollhig-pin.  The  most 
dangerous  acts  of  the  trapeze  have  been  withdrawn. 
The  acrobats  still  abound,  but  it  is  three  long  years 
since  I  looked  upon  a  coon  act  with  real  Afro-Amer 
icans  in  it,  or  saw  a  citizen  of  Cincinnati  in  a  fin- 
overcoat  keeping  a  silk  hat,  an  open  umbrella,  and  a 
small  wad  of  paper  in  the  air  with  one  hand.  It  is 
true  that  the  conquest  of  the  vaudeville  houses  bv 
the  full-fledged  drama  has  revived  the  old-fashioned 
stock  companies  in  many  cases,  and  has  so  far  worked 

A  41 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

for  good,  but  it  is  a  doubtful  advantage  when  compared 
with  the  loss  of  the  direct  inspiration  of  the  artists  who 
created  and  performed  their  stunts." 

"  Delightful  word !"  we  dreamily  noted.  "  How  did 
it  originate?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  It's  probably  a  perversion  of 
stint,  a  task  or  part,  which  is  also  to  be  found  in  the 
dictionary  as  stent.  What  does  it  matter?  There  is 
the  word,  and  there  is  the  thing,  and  both  are  charming. 
I  approve  of  the  stunt  because  it  is  always  the  stunt- 
ist's  own.  He  imagined  it,  he  made  it,  and  he  loves 
it.  He  seems  never  to  be  tired  of  it,  even  when  it  is 
bad,  and  Avhen  nobody  in  the  house  lends  him  a  hand 
with  it.  Of  course,  when  it  comes  to  that,  it  has  to 
go,  and  he  with  it.  It  has  to  go  when  it  is  good,  after 
it  has  had  its  day,  though  I  don't  see  why  it  should 
go;  for  rny  part  there  are  stunts  I  could  see  endlessly 
over  again,  and  not  weary  of  them.  Can  you  say  as 
much  of  any  play  ?" 

"  Gilbert  and  Sullivan's  operas,"  we  suggested. 

"  That  is  true.  But  without  the  music  ?  And  even 
with  the  music,  the  public  won't  have  them  any  longer. 
I  would  like  to  see  the  stunt  fully  developed.  I  should 
like  to  have  that  lovely  wilding  growth  delicately  nur 
tured  into  drama  as  limitless  and  lawless  as  life  itself, 
owing  no  allegiance  to  plot,  submitting  to  no  rule  or 
canon,  but  going  gayly  on  to  nothingness  as  human 
existence  does,  full  of  gleaming  lights,  and  dark  with 
inconsequent  glooms,  musical,  merry,  melancholy,  mad, 
but  never-ending  as  the  race  itself." 

"  You  would  like  a  good  deal  more  than  you  are 
ever  likely  to  get,"  we  said;  and  here  we  thought  it 
was  time  to  bring  our  visitor  to  book  again.  "  But 
about  the  decline  of  vaudeville  ?" 

"  Well,  it  isn't  grovelling  yet  in  the  mire  with  popu- 

42 


THE    PRACTICES    OF    VAUDEVILLE 

lar  fiction,  but  it  is  standing  still,  and  whatever  is 
standing  still  is  going  backward,  or  at  least  other  things 
are  passing  it.  To  hold  its  own,  the  vaudeville  must 
grab  something  more  than  its  own.  It  must  venture 
into  regions  yet  unexplored.  It  must  seize  not  only 
the  fleeting  moments,  but  the  enduring  moments  of  ex 
perience;  it  should  be  wise  not  only  to  the  whims  and 
moods,  but  the  passions,  the  feelings,  the  natures  of 
men;  for  it  appeals  to  a  public  not  sophisticated  by 
mistaken  ideals  of  art,  but  instantly  responsive  to  repre 
sentations  of  life.  Nothing  is  lost  upon  the  vaudeville 
audience,  not  the  lightest  touch,  not  the  airiest  shadow 
of  meaning.  Compared  with  the  ordinary  audience  at 
the  legitimate  theatres — 

"  Then  what  you  wish,"  we  concluded,  "  is  to  ele 
vate  the  vaudeville." 

The  visitor  got  himself  out  of  the  Easy  Chair,  with 
something  between  a  groan  and  a  growl.  "  You  mean 
to  kill  it," 


INTIMATIONS  OF  ITALIAN  OPERA 

WHETHER  pleasure  of  the  first  experience  is  more 
truly  pleasure  than  that  which  comes  rich  in  associa 
tions  from  pleasures  of  the  past  is  a  doubt  that  no 
hedonistic  philosopher  seems  to  have  solved  yet.  We 
should,  in  fact,  be  sorry  if  any  had,  for  in  that  case 
we  should  be  without  such  small  occasion  as  we  now 
have  to  suggest  it  in  the  forefront  of  a  paper  which 
will  not  finally  pass  beyond  the  suggestion.  When  the 
reader  has  arrived  at  our  last  word  we  can  safely  prom 
ise  him  he  will  still  have  the  misgiving  we  set,  out  with, 
and  will  be  confirmed  in  it  by  the  reflection  that  no 
pleasure,  either  of  the  earliest  or  the  latest  experience, 
can  be  unmixed  with  pain.  One  will  be  fresher  than 
the  other;  that  is  all;  but  it  is  not  certain  that  the 
surprise  will  have  less  of  disappointment  in  it  than  the 
unsurprise.  In  the  one  case,  the  case  of  youth,  say, 
there  will  be  the  racial  disappointment  to  count  with, 
and  in  the  other,  the  case  of  age,  there  will  be  the 
personal  disappointment,  which  is  probably  a  lighter 
thing.  The  racial  disappointment  is  expressed  in  what 
used  to  be  called,  somewhat  untranslatably,  Welt- 
schmerz.  This  was  peculiarly  the  appanage  of  youth, 
being  the  anticipative  melancholy,  the  pensive  forebod 
ing,  distilled  from  the  blighted  hopes  of  former  gen 
erations  of  youth.  Mixed  with  the  effervescent  blood 

44 


INTIMATIONS     OF     ITALIAN     OPEKA 

of  the  young  heart,  it  acted  like  a  subtle  poison,  and 
eventuated  in  more  or  less  rhythmical  deliriums,  in 
cynical  excesses  of  sentiment,  in  extravagances  of  be 
havior,  in  effects  which  commonly  passed  when  the 
subject  himself  became  ancestor,  and  transmitted  his 
inherited  burden  of  Weltschmerz  to  his  posterity.  The 
old  are  sometimes  sad,  on  account  of  the  sins  and  follies 
they  have  personally  committed  and  know  they  will 
commit  again,  but  for  pure  gloom — gloom  positive,  ab 
solute,  all  but  palpable — you  must  go  to  youth.  That 
is  not  merely  the  time  of  disappointment,  it  is  in  itself 
disappointment;  it  is  not  what  it  expected  to  be;  and 
it  finds  nothing  which  confronts  it  quite,  if  at  all, 
responsive  to  the  inward  vision.  The  greatest,  the  love 
liest  things  in  the  world  lose  their  iridescence  or  dwin 
dle  before  it.  The  old  come  to  things  measurably  pre 
pared  to  see  them  as  they  are,  take  them  for  what  they 
are  worth;  but  the  young  are  the  prey  of  impassioned 
prepossessions  which  can  never  be  the  true  measures. 

The  disadvantage  of  an  opening  like  this  is  that  it 
holds  the  same  quality,  if  not  quantity,  of  disappoint 
ment  as  those  other  sublime  things,  and  we  earnestly 
entreat  the  reader  to  guard  himself  against  expecting 
anything  considerable  from  it.  Probably  the  inexperi 
enced  reader  has  imagined  from  our  weighty  prologue 
something  of  signal  importance  to  follow;  but  the 
reader  who  has  been  our  reader  through  thick  and  thin 
for  many  years  will  have  known  from  the  first  that 
we  were  not  going  to  deal  with  anything  more  vital, 
say,  than  a  few  emotions  and  memories,  prompted,  one 
night  of  the  other  winter,  by  hearing  one  of  the  old- 
fashioned  Italian  operas  which  a  more  than  commonly 
inspired  management  had  been  purveying  to  an  over- 
Wagnered  public.  In  fact,  we  had  a  sense  that  this 

45 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

sort  of  reader  was  there  with  us  the  night  we  saw 
"  L'  Elisir  d'  Amore,"  and  that  it  was  in  his  personality 
we  felt  and  remembered  many  things  which  we  could 
have  fancied  personal  only  to  ourselves. 

He  began  to  take  the  affair  out  of  our  keeping  from 
the  first  moment,  when,  after  passing  through  the 
crowd  arriving  from  the  snowy  street,  we  found  our 
way  through  the  distracted  vestibule  of  the  opera- 
house  into  the  concentred  auditorium  and  hushed  our 
selves  in  the  presence  of  the  glowing  spectacle  of  the 
stage.  "  Ah,  this  is  the  real  thing/'  he  whispered,  and 
he  would  not  let  us,  at  any  moment  when  we  could 
have  done  so  without  molesting  our  neighbors,  censure 
the  introduction  of  Alpine  architecture  in  the  entour 
age  of  an  Italian  village  piazza.  "  It  is  a  village  at 
the  foot  of  the  Alps  probably,"  he  said,  "  and  if  not, 
no  matter.  It  is  as  really  the  thing  as  all  the  rest: 
as  the  chorus  of  peasants  and  soldiers,  of  men  and 
women  who  impartially  accompany  the  orchestra  in 
the  differing  sentiments  of  the  occasion ;  as  the  rivals 
who  vie  with  one  another  in  recitative  and  aria ;  as  the 
heroine  who  holds  them  both  in  a  passion  of  suspense 
while  she  weaves  the  enchantment  of  her  trills  and 
runs  about  them;  as  the  whole  circumstance  of  the 
divinely  impossible  thing  which  defies  nature  and  tri 
umphs  over  prostrate  probability.  What  does  a  little 
Swiss  Gothic  matter  ?  The  thing  is  always  opera,  and 
it  is  always  Italy.  I  was  thinking,  as  we  crowded  in 
there  from  the  outside,  with  our  lives  in  our  hands, 
through  all  those  trolleys  and  autos  and  carriages  and 
cabs  and  sidewalk  ticket  -  brokers,  of  the  first  time 
I  saw  this  piece.  It  was  in  Venice,  forty-odd  years 
ago,  and  I  arrived  at  the  theatre  in  a  gondola,  slipping 
to  the  water-gate  with  a  waft  of  the  gondolier's  oar  that 
was  both  impulse  and  arrest,  and  I  was  helped  up  the 

46 


INTIMATIONS     OF     ITALIAN     OPERA 

sea-weedy,  slippery  steps  by  a  beggar  whom  age  and 
sorrow  had  bowed  to  just  the  right  angle  for  supporting 
my  hand  on  the  shoulder  he  lent  it.  The  blackness 
of  the  tide  was  pierced  with  the  red  plunge  of  a  few 
lamps,  and  it  gurgled  and  chuckled  as  my  gondola 
lurched  off  and  gave  way  to  another;  and  when  I  got 
to  my  box — a  box  was  two  florins,  but  I  could  afford 
it — 1  looked  down  on  just  this  scene,  over  a  pit  full  of 
Austrian  officers  and  soldiers,  and  round  on  a  few  Vene 
tians  darkling  in  the  other  boxes  and  hali-heartedly 
enjoying  the  music.  It  was  the  most  hopeless  hour  of 
the  Austrian  occupation,  and  the  air  was  heavy  with 
its  oppression  and  tobacco,  for  the  officers  smoked  be 
tween  the  acts.  It  was  only  the  more  intensely  Italian 
for  that;  but  it  was  not  more  Italian  than  this;  and 
when  I  see  those  impossible  people  on  the  stage,  and 
hear  them  sing,  I  breathe  an  atmosphere  that  is  like 
the  ether  beyond  the  pull  of  our  planet,  and  is  as  far 
from  all  its  laws  and  limitations." 

Our  friend  continued  to  talk  pretty  well  through 
the  whole  interval  between  the  first  and  second  acts ; 
and  we  were  careful  not  to  interrupt  him,  for  from  the 
literary  quality  of  his  diction  we  fancied  him  talking 
for  publication,  and  we  wished  to  take  note  of  every 
turn  of  his  phrase. 

"  It's  astonishing,"  he  said,  "  how  little  art  needs  in 
order  to  give  the  effect  of  life.  A  touch  here  and 
there  is  enough;  but  art  is  so  conditioned  that  it  has 
to  work  against  time  and  space,  and  is  obliged  to  fill 
up  and  round  out  its  own  body  with  much  stuff  that 
gives  no  sense  of  life.  The  realists,"  he  went  on,  "  were 
only  half  right." 

"  Isn't  it  better  to  be  half  right  than  wrong  alto 
gether?"  we  interposed. 

47 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  I'm  not  sure.  What  I  wanted  to  express  is  that 
every  now  and  then  I  find  in  very  defective  art  of  all 
kinds  that  mere  look  of  the  real  thing  which  suffices. 
A  few  words  of  poetry  glance  from  the  prose  body  of 
verse  and  make  us  forget  the  prose.  A  moment  of 
dramatic  motive  carries  hours  of  heavy  comic  or  tragic 
performance.  Is  any  piece  of  sculpture  or  painting  al 
together  good  ?  Or  isn't  the  spectator  held  in  the  same 
glamour  which  involved  the  artist  before  he  began  the 
work,  and  which  it  is  his  supreme  achievement  to  im 
part,  so  that  it  shall  hide  all  defects?  When  I  read 
what  you  wrote  the  other  month,  or  the  other  year, 
about  the  vaudeville  shows — " 

"  Hush !"  we  entreated.  "  Don't  bring  those  low 
associations  into  this  high  presence." 

"  Why  not  ?  It  is  all  the  same  thing.  There  is 
no  inequality  in  the  region  of  art;  and  I  have  seen 
things  on  the  vaudeville  stage  which  were  graced  with 
touches  of  truth  so  exquisite,  ?o  ideally  fine,  that  I 
might  have  believed  I  was  getting  them  at  first  hand 
and  pure  from  the  street-corner.  Of  course,  the  poor 
fellows  who  had  caught  them  from  life  had  done  their 
worst  to  imprison  them  in  false  terms,  to  labor  them 
out  of  shape,  and  build  them  up  in  acts  where  any 
thing  less  precious  would  have  been  lost ;  but  they  sur 
vived  all  that  and  gladdened  the  soul.  I  realized  that 
I  should  have  been  making  a  mistake  if  I  had  required 
any  '  stunt '  which  embodied  them  to  be  altogether 
composed  of  touches  of  truth,  of  moments  of  life.  We 
can  stand  only  a  very  little  radium;  the  captured  sun 
shine  burns  with  the  fires  that  heat  the  summers  of  the 
farthest  planets ;  and  we  cannot  handle  the  miraculous 
substance  as  if  it  were  mere  mineral.  A  touch  of  truth 
is  perhaps  not  only  all  we  need,  but  all  we  can  endure 
in  any  one  example  of  art." 

48 


INTIMATIONS     OF     ITALIAN     OPERA 

"  You  are  lucky  if  you  get  so  much,"  we  said,  u  even 
at  a  vaudeville  show." 

"  Or  at  an  opera,"  he  returned,  and  then  the  curtain 
rose  on  the  second  act.  When  it  fell  again,  he  resumed, 
as  if  he  had  been  interrupted  in  the  middle  of  a  sen 
tence.  "  What  should  you  say  was  the  supreme  mo 
ment  of  this  thing,  or  was  the  radioactive  property,  the 
very  soul?  Of  course,  it  is  there  where  Nemorino 
drinks  the  elixir  and  finds  himself  freed  from  Adina; 
when  he  hursts  into  the  joyous  song  of  liberation  and 
gives  that  delightful  caper 

*  Which  signifies  indifference,  indifference, 
Which  signifies  indifference/ 

and  which  not  uncommonly  results  from  a  philter  com 
posed  entirely  of  claret.  When  Adina  advances  in  the 
midst  of  his  indifference  and  breaks  into  the  lyrical 
lament 

'  Neppur  mi  guarda P 

she  expresses  the  mystery  of  the  sex  which  can  be  best 
provoked  to  love  by  the  sense  of  loss,  and  the  vital  spark 
of  the  opera  is  kindled.  The  rest  is  mere  incorporative 
material.  It  has  to  be.  In  other  conditions  the  soul 
may  be  disembodied,  and  we  may  have  knowledge  of 
it  without  the  interposition  of  anything  material ;  but 
if  there  are  spiritual  bodies  as  there  are  material  bodies, 
still  the  soul  may  wrap  itself  from  other  souls  and 
emit  itself  only  in  gleams.  But  putting  all  that  aside, 
I  should  like  to  bet  that  the  germ,  the  vital  spark  of  the 
opera,  felt  itself  life,  felt  itself  flame,  first  of  all  in 
that  exquisite  moment  of  release  which  Nemorino's 
caper  conveys.  Till  then  it  must  have  been  rather 
blind  groping,  with  nothing  hotter  in  hand  than  that 

49 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

old,  worn-out  notion  of  a  love-philter.  What  will  you 
bet?" 

"  We  never  bet,"  we  virtuously  replied.  "  We  are 
principled  against  it  in  all  cases  where  we  feel  sure 
of  losing;  though  in  this  case  we  could  never  settle  it, 
for  both  composer  and  librettist  are  dead." 

"  Yes,  isn't  it  sad  that  spirits  so  gay  should  be  gone 
from  a  world  that  needs  gayety  so  much?  That  is 
probably  the  worst  of  death;  it  is  so  indiscriminate," 
the  reader  thoughtfully  observed. 

"But  aren't  you,"  we  asked,  "getting  rather  far 
away  from  the  question  whether  the  pleasure  of  experi 
ence  isn't  greater  than  the  pleasure  of  inexperience — 
whether  later  operas  don't  give  more  joy  than  the 
first?" 

"  Was  that  the  question  ?"  he  returned.  "  I  thought 
it  was  whether  Italian  opera  was  not  as  much  at  home 
in  exile  as  in  its  native  land." 

"  Well,  make  it  that,"  we  responded,  tolerantly. 

"  Oh  no,"  he  met  us  half-way.  "  But  it  naturalizes 
itself  everywhere.  They  have  it  in  St.  Petersburg  and 
in  Irkutsk,  for  all  I  know,  and  certainly  in  Calcutta 
and  Australia,  the  same  as  in  Milan  and  Venice  and 
Naples,  or  as  here  in  New  York,  where  everything  is 
so  much  at  home,  or  so  little.  It's  the  most  universal 
form  of  art." 

"  Is  it  ?  Why  more  so  than  sculpture  or  painting 
or  architecture  ?" 

Our  demand  gave  the  reader  pause.  Then  he  said: 
"  I  think  it  is  more  immediately  universal  than  the 
other  forms  of  art.  These  all  want  time  to  denation 
alize  themselves.  It  is  their  nationality  which  first 
authorizes  them  to  be;  but  it  takes  decades,  centuries 
sometimes,  for  them  to  begin  their  universal  life.  It 
seems  different  with  operas.  '  Cavalleria  Eusticana  ' 

50 


INTIMATIONS     OF     ITALIAN     OPERA 

was  as  much  at  home  with  us  in  its  first  year  as 
*  L'Elisir  d'Amore '  is  now  in  its  sixtieth  or  seven 
tieth." 

"  But  it  isn't,"  we  protested,  "  denationalized.  What 
can  be  more  intensely  Italian  than  an  Italian  opera  is 
anywhere  ?" 

"  You're  right,"  the  reader  owned,  as  the  reader  al 
ways  must,  if  honest,  in  dealing  with  the  writer.  "  It 
is  the  operatic  audience,  not  the  opera,  which  is  de 
nationalized  when  the  opera  becomes  universal.  We 
are  all  Italians  here  to-night.  I  only  wish  we  were  in 
our  native  land,  listening  to  this  musical  peal  of  ghost 
ly  laughter  from  the  past." 

The  reader  was  silent  a  moment  while  the  vast  house 
buzzed  and  murmured  and  babbled  from  floor  to  roof. 
Perhaps  the  general  note  of  the  conversation,  if  it 
could  have  been  tested,  would  have  been  found  vol 
untary  rather  than  spontaneous ;  but  the  sound  was  gay, 
and  there  could  be  no  question  of  the  splendor  of  the 
sight.  We  may  decry  our  own  almost  as  much  as  we 
please,  but  there  is  a  point  whore  we  must  cease  to 
depreciate  ourselves ;  even  for  the  sake  of  evincing  our 
superiority  to  our  possessions,  we  must  not  undervalue 
some  of  them.  One  of  these  is  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House,  where  the  pride  of  wealth,  the  vanity  of  fash 
ion,  the  beauty  of  youth,  and  the  taste  and  love  of 
music  fill  its  mighty  cup  to  the  brim  in  the  propor 
tions  that  they  bear  to  one  another  in  the  community. 
Wherever  else  we  fail  of  our  ideal,  there  we  surely 
realize  it  on  terms  peculiarly  our  own.  Subjec 
tively  the  scene  is  intensely  responsive  to  the  New 
York  spirit,  and  objectively  it  is  most  expressive  of 
the  American  character  in  that  certain  surface  ef 
fect  of  thin  brilliancy  which  remains  with  the  spec- 

51 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

tator  the  most  memorable  expression   of  its  physiog 
nomy. 

No  doubt  something  like  this  was  in  the  reader's 
mind  when  he  resumed,  with  a  sigh :  "  It's  rather  pa 
thetic  how  much  more  magnificently  Italian  opera  has 
always  been  circumstanced  in  exile  than  at  home.  It 
had  to  emigrate  in  order  to  better  its  fortunes ;  it  could 
soon  be  better  seen  if  not  heard  outside  of  Italy  than 
in  its  native  country.  It  was  only  where  it  could  be 
purely  conventional  as  well  as  ideal  that  it  could 
achieve  its  greatest  triumphs.  It  had  to  make  a  hard 
fight  for  its  primacy  among  the  amusements  that  flat 
ter  the  pride  as  well  as  charm  the  sense.  You  remem 
ber  how  the  correspondents  of  Mr.  Spectator  wrote  to 
him  in  scorn  of  the  affected  taste  of  '  the  town '  when 
the  town  in  London  first  began  to  forsake  the  theatre 
and  to  go  to  the  opera  ?" 

"  Yes,  they  were  very  severe  on  the  town  for  pre 
tending  to  a  pleasure  imparted  in  a  language  it  could 
not  understand  a  word  of.  They  had  all  the  reason 
on  their  side,  and  they  needed  it;  but  the  opera  is  in 
dependent  of  reason,  and  the  town  felt  that  for  its  own 
part  it  could  dispense  with  reason,  too.  The  town  can 
always  do  that.  It  would  not  go  seriously  or  constantly 
to  English  opera,  though  ever  so  much  invited  to  do 
so,  for  all  the  reasons,  especially  the  patriotic  reasons. 
Isn't  it  strange,  by-the-way,  how  English  opera  is  a 
fashion,  while  Italian  opera  remains  a  passion  ?  We 
had  it  at  its  best,  didn't  we,  in  the  Gilbert  and  Sullivan 
operas,  which  were  the  most  charming  things  in  the 
world ;  but  they  charmed  only  for  a  while,  and  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  they  ever  greatly  charmed  the  town. 
The  manager  of  the  Metropolitan  replaces  German  with 
Italian  opera,  and  finds  his  account  in  it,  but  could 

he  find  his  account  in  it  if  he  put  on  l  The  Mikado '  in- 

52 


INTIMATIONS     OF     ITALIAN     OPERA 

stead  of  '  L'Elisir  d'Amore  '  ?     If  he  did  so,  the  town 
would  not  be  here.     Why  ?" 

The  reader  did  not  try  to  answer  at  once.  He  seemed 
to  be  thinking,  but  perhaps  he  was  not;  other  readers 
may  judge  from  his  reply,  which,  when  it  came,  was 
this :  "  There  seems  to  be  something  eternally  as  well 
as  universally  pleasing  in  Italian  opera ;  but  what  the 
thing  is,  or  how  much  of  a  thing  it  is,  I  wouldn't  un 
dertake  to  say.  Possibly  the  fault  of  English  opera  is 
its  actuality.  It  seizes  upon  a  contemporaneous  mood 
or  fad,  and  satirizes  it;  but  the  Italian  opera  at  its 
lightest  deals  with  a  principle  of  human  nature,  and 
it  is  never  satirical;  it  needn't  be,  for  it  is  as  inde 
pendent  of  the  morals  as  of  the  reasons.  It  isn't 
obliged,  by  the  terms  of  its  existence,  to  teach,  any 
more  than  it  is  obliged  to  convince.  It's  the  most 
absolute  thing  in  the  world ;  and  from  its  unnatural 
height  it  can  stoop  at  will  in  moments  of  enrapturing 
naturalness  without  ever  losing  poise.  Wasn't  that  de 
lightful  where  Caruso  hesitated  about  his  encore,  and 
then,  with  a  shrug  and  a  waft  of  his  left  hand  to  the 
house,  went  off  in  order  to  come  back  and  give  his 
aria  with  more  effect?  That  was  a  touch  of  natural 
ness  not  in  the  scheme  of  the  opera." 

"  Yes,  but  it  was  more  racial,  more  personal,  than 
natural.  It  was  delicious,  but  we  are  not  sure  we  ap 
proved  of  it." 

"  Ah,  in  Italian  opera  you're  not  asked  to  approve ; 
you're  only  desired  to  enjoy !" 

"  Well,  then  that  bit  of  racial  personality  was  of  the 
effect  of  actuality,  and  it  jarred." 

"  Perhaps  you're  right,"  the  reader  sighed,  but  he 
added :  "  It  was  charming ;  yes,  it  made  itself  part 
of  the  piece.  Nemorino.  would  have  done  just  as 
Caruso  did." 

53 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

At  the  last  fall  of  the  curtain  the  reader  and  the 
writer  rose  in  unison,  a  drop  of  that  full  tide  of  life 
which  ebbed  by  many  channels  out  of  the  vast  audito 
rium,  and  in  two  or  three  minutes  left  it  dry.  They 
stayed  in  their  duplex  personality  to  glance  at  the 
silken  evanescences  from  the  boxes,  and  then,  being  in 
the  mood  for  the  best  society,  they  joined  the  shining 
presences  in  the  vestibule  where  these  waited  for  their 
carriages  and  automobiles.  Of  this  company  the  inter 
locutors  felt  themselves  so  inseparably  part  that  they 
could  with  difficulty  externate  themselves  so  far  as  to 
observe  that  it  was  of  the  quality  of  "  the  town  "  which 
had  gone  to  Italian  opera  from  the  first. 

In  Mr.  Spectator's  time  the  town  would  have  been 
lighted  by  the  smoky  torches  of  linkboys  to  its  chairs; 
now  it  was  called  to  its  electric  autos  in  the  blaze  of  a 
hundred  incandescent  bulbs ;  but  the  difference  was  not 
enough  to  break  the  tradition.  There  was  something 
in  the  aspect  of  that  patrician  throng,  as  it  waited  the 
turn  of  each,  which  struck  the  reader  and  writer  jointly 
as  a  novel  effect  from  any  American  crowd,  but  which 
the  writer  scarcely  dares  intimate  to  the  general  reader, 
for  the  general  reader  is  much  more  than  generally  a 
woman,  and  she  may  not  like  it.  Perhaps  we  can  keep 
it  from  offending  by  supposing  that  the  fact  can  be 
true  only  of  the  most  elect  socially,  but  in  any  case 
the  fact  seemed  to  be  that  the  men  were  handsomer 
than  the  women.  They  were  not  only  handsomer,  but 
they  were  sweller  (if  we  may  use  a  comparative  hith 
erto  unachieved)  in  look,  and  even  in  dress. 

How  this  could  have  happened  in  a  civilization  so 
peculiarly  devoted  as  ours  to  the  evolution  of  female 
beauty  and  style  is  a  question  which  must  be  referred 
to  scientific  inquiry.  It  does  not  affect  the  vast  average 
of  woman's  loveliness  and  taste  among  us  in  ranks  be- 

54 


INTIMATIONS     OF     ITALIAN     OPERA 

low  the  very  highest;  this  remains  unquestioned  and 
unquestionable ;  and  perhaps,  in  the  given  instance, 
it  was  an  appearance  and  not  a  fact,  or  .perhaps 
the  joint  spectator  was  deceived  as  to  the  supreme 
social  value  of  those  rapidly  dwindling  and  dissolving 
groups. 

The  reader  and  the  writer  were  some  time  in  find 
ing  their  true  level,  when  they  issued  into  the  common 
life  of  the  street,  and  they  walked  home  as  much  like 
driving  home  as  they  could.  On  the  way  the  reader, 
who  was  so  remotely  lost  in  thought  that  the  writer 
could  scarcely  find  him,  made  himself  heard  in  a 
musing  suspiration :  "  There  was  something  missing. 
Can  you  think  what  it  was  ?" 

"  Yes,  certainly ;  there  was  no  ballet." 

"Ah,  to  be  sure:  no  ballet!  And  there  used  al 
ways  to  be  a  ballet!  You  remember/'  the  reader 
said,  "  how  beatific  it  always  Avas  to  have  the  minor 
coryphees  subside  in  nebulous  ranks  on  either  side 
of  the  stage,  and  have  the  great  planetary  splendor 
of  the  prima  ballerina  come  swiftly  floating  down  the 
centre  to  the  very  footlights,  beaming  right  and  left? 
Ah,  there's  nothing  in  life  now  like  that  radiant  mo 
ment!  But  even  that  was  eclipsed  when  she  rose  on 
tiptoe  and  stubbed  it  down  the  scene  on  the  points  of 
her  slippers,  with  the  soles  of  her  feet  showing  vertical 
in  the  act.  Why  couldn't  we  have  had  that  to-night  2 
Yes,  we  have  been  cruelly  wronged." 

"  But  you  don't  give  the  true  measure  of  our  injury. 
You  forget  that  supreme  instant  when  the  master-spirit 
of  the  ballet  comes  skipping  suddenly  forward,  and 
leaping  into  the  air  with  calves  that  exchange  a  shim 
mer  of  kisses,  and  catches  the  prima  ballerina  at  the 
waist,  and  tosses  her  aloft,  and  when  she  comes  down 
supports  her  as  she  bends  this  way  and  that  way,  and 

55 


IMAGINAKY    INTERVIEWS 

all  at  once  stiffens  for  her  bow  to  the  house.  Think 
of  our  having  been  defrauded  of  that!" 

"  Yes,  we  have  been  wickedly  defrauded."  The 
reader  was  silent  for  a  while,  and  then  he  said :  "  I 
wonder  if  anybody  except  the  choreographic  composer 
ever  knew  what  the  story  of  any  ballet  was?  Were 
you  ever  able  to  follow  it?" 

"Certainly  not.  It  is  bad  enough  following  the 
opera.  All  that  one  wishes  to  do  in  one  case  is  to  look, 
just  as  in  the  other  case  all  one  wishes  to  do  is  to 
listen.  We  would  as  lief  try  to  think  out  the  full  mean 
ing  of  a  Browning  poem  in  the  pleasure  it  gave  us,  as 
to  mix  our  joy  in  the  opera  or  the  ballet  with  any  severe 
question  of  their  purport." 


VI 

THE  SUPERIORITY  OF  OUR  INFERIORS 

THE  satirical  reader  introduced  himself  with  a 
gleam  in  his  eye  which  kindled  apprehension  in  the 
unreal  editor's  breast,  and  perhaps  roused  in  him  a  cer 
tain  guilty  self-consciousness. 

"  I  didn't  know,"  the  reader  said,  k*  that  you  were 
such  a  well-appointed  arbiter  elegantiarum" 

"Meaning  our  little  discourse  last  month  on  the 
proper  form  of  addressing  letters?"  the  editor  boldly 
grappled  with  the  insinuation.  "Oh  yes;  etiquette  is 
part  of  our  function.  We  merely  hadn't  got  round  to 
the  matter  before.  You  liked  our  remarks?" 

"  Very  much,"  our  visitor  said,  with  the  fine  irony 
characteristic  of  him.  "  All  the  more  because  I  hadn't 
expected  that  sort  of  thing  of  you.  What  I  have  ex 
pected  of  you  hitherto  was  something  more  of  the 
major  morality." 

"  But  the  large-sized  morals  did  not  enter  into  that 
scheme.  We  deal  at  times  with  the  minor  morality, 
too,  if  the  occasion  demands,  as  we  have  suggested. 
You  should  not  have  been  surprised  to  find  politeness, 
as  well  as  righteousness,  advocated  or  applauded  here. 
Naturally,  of  course,  we  prefer  the  larger-sized  morals 
as  questions  for  discussion.  Had  you  one  of  the  larger- 
sized  questions  of  morality  to  present  ?" 

"  I  was  thinking  it  was  a  larger-sized  question  of 
manners." 

5  57 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  For  example." 

"  The  experience  of  one  of  those  transatlantic  celebri 
ties  who  seem  to  be  rather  multiplying  upon  us  of  late, 
and  who  come  here  with  a  proclamation  of  their  wor 
ship  of  American  women  ready  to  present,  as  if  in 
print,  to  the  swarming  interviewers  on  the  pier,  arid 
who  then  proceed  to  find  fault  with  our  civilization  on 
every  other  point,  almost  before  they  drive  up  to  their 
hotels." 

"But  isn't  that  rather  an  old  story?" 

"  I  suppose  it  is  rather  old,  but  it  always  interests 
us ;  we  are  never  free  from  that  longing  for  a  flattered 
appearance  in  the  eyes  of  others  which  we  so  seldom 
achieve.  This  last,  or  next  to  last,  celebrity — in  the 
early  winter  it  is  impossible  to  fix  their  swift  succes 
sion — seems  to  have  suffered  amaze  at  the  rude  be 
havior  of  some  dairymaids  in  the  milk-room  of  the  lady 
who  was  showing  the  celebrity  over  her  premises.  I 
didn't  understand  the  situation  very  clearly.  The  lady 
must  have  been  a  lady  farmer,  in  order  to  have  a  milk- 
room  with  dairymaids  in  it ;  but  in  any  case  the  fact  is 
that  when  the  lady  entered  with  the  celebrity  the  maids 
remained  seated,  where  they  were  grouped  together,  in 
stead  of  rising  and  standing  in  the  presence  of  their 
superiors,  as  they  would  have  done  in  the  hemisphere 
that  the  celebrity  came  from." 

"  Well,  what  came  of  it «" 

"  Oh,  nothing.  It  was  explained  to  the  celebrity  that 
the  maids  did  not  rise  because  they  felt  themselves  as 
good  as  their  mistress  and  her  guest,  and  saw  no  reason 
for  showing  them  a  servile  deference :  that  this  was  the 
American  ideal." 

"In  the  minds  of  those  Swedish,  Irish,  English, 
Polish,  German,  or  Bohemian  dairymaids,"  we  mur 
mured,  dreamily,  and  when  our  reader  roused  us  from 

58 


SUPERIORITY  OF  OUR  INFERIORS 

our  muse  with  a  sharp  "  What  ?"  we  explained,  "  Of 
course  they  were  not  American  dairymaids,  for  it 
stands  to  reason  that  if  they  were  dairymaids  they 
could  not  be  Americans,  or  if  Americans  they  could 
not  be  dairymaids." 

"  True,"  our  friend  assented,  "  but  all  the  same  you 
admit  that  they  were  behaving  from  an  American 
ideal?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  that  ideal  is  what  the  celebrity  objects  to. 
The  celebrity  doesn't  like  it — on  very  high  grounds." 

"  The  grounds  of  social  inequality,  the  inferiority 
of  those  who  work  to  those  who  pay,  and  the  right  of 
the  superiors  to  the  respect  of  the  inferiors  ?" 

"  No,  the  politeness  due  from  one  class  to  another." 

"  Such  as  lives  between  classes  in  Europe,  we  sup 
pose.  Well,  that  is  very  interesting.  Is  it  of  record 
that  the  lady  and  her  guest,  on  going  into  the  milk- 
room  where  the  dairvmaids  remained  rudely  seated, 
bowed  or  nodded  to  them  or  said,  '  Good-day,  young 
ladies'?" 

"  Xo,  that  is  not  of  record." 

"  Their  human  quality,  their  human  equality,  being 
altogether  out  of  the  question,  was  probably  in  no  wise 
recognized.  Why,  then,  should  they  have  recognized 
the  human  quality  of  their  visitors?"  Our  satirical 
reader  was  silent,  and  we  went  on.  "  There  is  some 
thing  very  droll  in  all  that.  We  suppose  you  have 
often  been  vexed,  or  even  outraged,  by  the  ingratitude 
of  the  waiter  whom  you  had  given  a  handsome  tip, 
over  and  above  the  extortionate  charge  of  the  house, 
and  who  gathered  up  your  quarter  or  half-dollar  and 
slipped  it  into  his  pocket  without  a  word,  or  even  an 
inarticulate  murmur,  of  thanks  ?" 

"  Often.     Outraged  is  no  word  for  it." 

59 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  Yes,"  we  assented,  feeling  our  way  delicately. 
"  Has  it  ever  happened  that  in  the  exceptional  case 
where  the  waiter  has  said,  '  Thank  you  very  much/ 
or  the  like,  you  have  responded  with  a  cordial,  '  You're 
welcome,'  or,  '  Not  at  all '  ?" 

u  Certainly  not." 

"  Why  not?" 

"Because — because — those  are  terms  of  politeness 
between — " 

Our  friend  hesitated,  and  we  interrogatively  sup 
plied  the  word,  "  Equals  ?  There  are  always  difficul 
ties  between  unequal?.  But  try  this,  some  day,  and 
see  what  a  real  gratitude  you  will  get  from  the  waiter. 
It  isn't  infallible,  but  the  chances  are  he  will  feel  that 
you  have  treated  him  like  a  man,  and  will  do  or  say 
something  to  show  his  feeling:  he  will  give  a  twitch 
to  your  under-coat  when  he  has  helped  you  on  with 
your  top-coat,  which  will  almost  pull  you  over.  We 
have  even  tried  saying  i  You  are  welcome '  to  a  beggar. 
It's  astonishing  how  they  like  it,  By-the-way,  have 
you  the  habit  of  looking  at  your  waiter  when  he  comes 
to  take  your  order ;  or  do  you  let  him  stand  facing  you, 
without  giving  him  a  glance  above  the  lower  button  of 
his  poor,  greasy  waistcoat  ?" 

"  No,  the  theory  is  that  he  is  part  of  the  mechanism 
of  the  establishment." 

"  That  is  the  theory.  But  it  has  its  inconveniences. 
We  ourselves  used  to  act  upon  it,  but  often,  when  we 
found  him  long  in  bringing  our  order,  we  were  at  a 
loss  which  waiter  to  ask  whether  it  would  be  ready 
some  time  during  the  evening;  and  occasionally  we 
have  blown  up  the  wrong  waiter,  who  did  not  fail  to 
bring  us  to  shame  for  our  error." 

"  They  do  look  so  confoundedly  alike,"  our  visitor 

said,  thoughtfully. 

60 


SUPERIORITY  OF  OUR  INFERIORS 

"  We  others  look  confoundedly  alike  to  them,  no 
doubt.  If  they  studied  us  as  little  as  we  study  them, 
if  they  ignored  us  as  contemptuously  as  we  do  them, 
upon  the  theory  that  we,  too,  are  part  of  the  mechanism, 
the  next  man  would  be  as  likely  as  we  to  get  our 
dinner." 

"  They  are  paid  to  study  us,"  our  visitor  urged. 

"  Ah,  paid!  The  intercourse  of  unequals  is  a  com 
mercial  transaction,  but  when  the  inferiors  propose  to 
make  it  purely  so  the  superiors  object :  they  want  some 
thing  to  boot,  something  thrown  in,  some  show  of  re 
spect,  some  appearance  of  gratitude.  Perhaps  those 
dairymaids  did  not  consider  that  they  were  paid  to 
stand  up  when  their  employer  and  the  visiting  celebrity 
came  into  the  milk  -  room,  and  so,  unless  they  were 
civally  recognized — we  don't  say  they  weren't  in  this 
case — they  thought  they  would  do  some  of  the  ignoring, 
too.  It  is  surprising  how  much  the  superiors  think 
they  ought  to  get  for  their  money  from  the  inferiors 
in  that  commercial  transaction.  For  instance,  they 
think  they  buy  the  right  to  call  their  inferiors  by  their 
first  names,  but  they  don't  think  they  sell  a  similar 
right  with  regard  to  themselves.  They  call  them  Mary 
and  John,  but  they  would  be  surprised  and  hurt  if  the 
butler  and  waitress  addressed  them  as  Mary  and  John. 
Yet  there  is  no  reason  for  their  surprise.  Do  you  re 
member  in  that  entrancing  and  edifying  comedy  of 
'  Arms  and  the  Man  ' — Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  very  best, 
as  we  think — the  wild  Bulgarian  maid  calls  the  daugh 
ter  of  the  house  by  her  Christian  name?  '  But  you 
mustn't  do  that,'  the  mother  of  the  house  instructs  her. 
'  Why  not  ?'  the  girl  demands.  '  She  calls  me  Louka.' ' 

"  Capital !"  our  friend  agreed.  "  But,  of  course, 
Shaw  doesn't  mean  it." 

"  You  never  can  tell  whether  he  means  a  thing  or 

Gl 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

not.  We  think  he  meant  in  this  case,  as  Ibsen  means 
in  all  cases,  that  you  shall  look  where  you  stand." 

Our  satirist  seemed  to  have  lost  something  of  his 
gayety.  "  Aren't  you  taking  the  matter  a  little  too 
seriously  '?" 

"  Perhaps.  But  we  thought  you  wanted  us  to  be 
more  serious  than  we  were  about  addressing  letters 
properly.  This  is  the  larger-sized  morality,  the  real 
No.  11  sort,  and  you  don't  like  it,  though  you  said  you 
expected  it  of  us." 

"  Oh,  but  I  do  like  it,  though  just  at  present  I  hadn't 
expected  it.  But  if  you're  in  earnest  you  must  admit 
that  the  lower  classes  with  us  are  abominably  rude. 
Now,  I  have  the  fancy — perhaps  from  living  on  the 
Continent  a  good  deal  in  early  life,  where  I  formed  the 
habit — of  saying  good-morning  to  the  maid  or  the  but 
ler  when  I  come  down.  But  they  never  seem  to  like 
it,  and  I  can't  get  a  good-morning  back  unless  I  dig 
it  out  of  them.  I  don't  want  them  to  treat  me  as  a 
superior ;  I  only  ask  to  be  treated  as  an  equal." 

"  We  have  heard  something  like  that  before,  but  we 
doubt  it.  What  you  really  want  is  to  have  your  con 
descension  recognized;  they  feel  that,  if  they  don't 
'know  it.  Besides,  their  manners  have  been  formed 
by  people  who  don't  ask  good-morning  from  them ;  they 
are  so  used  to  being  treated  as  if  they  were  not  there 
that  they  cannot  realize  they  are  there.  We  have  heard 
city  people  complain  of  the  wane  of  civility  among 
country  people  when  they  went  to  them  in  the  summer 
to  get  the  good  of  their  country  air.  They  say  that 
the  natives  no  longer  salute  them  in  meeting,  but  we 
never  heard  that  this  happened  when  they  first  saluted 
the  natives.  Try  passing  the  time  of  day  with  the 
next  farmer  you  meet  on  a  load  of  wood,  and  you  will 
find  that  the  old-fashioned  civility  is  still  to  be  had 

62 


SUPERIORITY  OF  OUR  INFERIORS 

for  the  asking.  But  it  won't  be  offered  without  the 
asking;  the  American  who  thinks  from  your  dress  and 
address  that  you  don't  regard  him  as  an  equal  will  not 
treat  you  as  one  at  the  risk  of  a  snub ;  and  he  is  right. 
As  for  domestics — or  servants,  as  we  insolently  call 
them — their  manners  are  formed  on  their  masters',  and 
are  often  very  bad.  But  they  are  not  always  bad.  We, 
too,  have  had  that  fancy  of  yours  for  saying  good- 
morning  when  we  come  down ;  it  doesn't  always  work, 
but  it  oftener  works  than  not.  A  friend  of  ours  has 
tried  some  such  civility  at  others'  houses:  at  his  host's 
house  when  the  door  was  opened  to  him,  arriving  for 
dinner,  and  he  was  gloomily  offered  a  tiny  envelope 
with  the  name  of  the  lady  he  was  to  take  out.  At  first 
it  surprised,  but  when  it  was  imagined  to  be  well  meant 
it  was  apparently  liked ;  in  extreme  cases  it  led  to  note 
of  the  weather;  the  second  or  third  time  at  the  same 
house  it  established  something  that  would  have  passed, 
with  the  hopeful  spectator,  for  a  human  relation.  Of 
course,  you  can't  carry  this  sort  of  thing  too  far.  You 
can  be  kind,  but  you  must  not  give  the  notion  that  you 
do  not  know  your  place." 

"  Ah !  You  draw  the  line,"  our  friend  exulted. 
"  I  thought  so.  But  where  ?" 

"  At  the  point  where  you  might  have  the  impression 
that  you  respected  butlers,  when  you  merely  loved  your 
fellow-men.  You  see  the  difference  ?" 

"  But  isn't  loving  your  fellow-men  enough  ?  Why 
should  you  respect  butlers?" 

"  To  be  sure.  But  come  to  think  of  it,  why  shouldn't 
you  ?  What  is  it  in  domestic  employ  that  degrades, 
that  makes  us  stigmatize  it  as  '  service  '  ?  As  soon  as 
you  get  out-of-doors  the  case  changes.  You  must  often 
have  seen  ladies  fearfully  snubbed  by  their  coachmen; 
and  as  for  chauffeurs,  who  may  kill  you  or  somebody 

63 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

else  at  any  moment,  the  mental  attitude  of  the  average 
automobilaire  toward  them  must  be  one  of  abject  defer 
ence.  But  there  have  been  some  really  heroic,  some 
almost  seraphic,  efforts  to  readjust  the  terms  of  a  re 
lation  that  seems  to  have  something  essentially  odious 
in  it.  In  the  old  times,  the  times  of  the  simple  life 
now  passed  forever,  when  the  daughter  of  one  family 
*  lived  out '  in  another,  she  ate  with  the  family  and 
shared  alike  with  them.  She  was  their  help,  but  she 
became  their  hindrance  when  she  insisted  upon  the 
primitive  custom  after  '  waiting  at  table '  had  passed 
the  stage  when  the  dishes  were  all  set  down,  and  the 
commensals  (  did  their  own  stretching.'  Heroes  and 
seraphs  did  their  utmost  to  sweeten  and  soften  the  situa 
tion,  but  the  unkind  tendency  could  not  be  stayed.  The 
daughter  of  the  neighbor  who  '  lived  out '  became  '  the 
hired  girl/  and  then  she  became  the  waitress,  especially 
when  she  was  of  neighbors  beyond  seas;  and  then  the 
game  was  up.  Those  who  thought  humanely  of  the  pre 
dicament  and  wished  to  live  humanely  in  it  tried  one 
thing  and  tried  another.  That  great  soul  of  IT.  D.  L., 
one  of  the  noblest  and  wisest  of  our  economic  reformers, 
now  gone  to  the  account  which  any  might  envy  him, 
had  a  usage  which  he  practised  with  all  guests  who 
came  to  his  table.  Before  they  sat  down  he  or  his 
wife  said,  looking  at  the  maid  who  was  to  serve  the 
dinner,  '  This  is  our  friend,  Miss  Murphy';  and  then 
the  guests  were  obliged  in  some  sort  to  join  the  host 
and  hostess  in  recognizing  the  human  quality  of  the 
attendant.  It  was  going  rather  far,  but  we  never  heard 
that  any  harm  came  of  it.  Some  thought  it  rather  odd, 
but  most  people  thought  it  rather  nice." 

"  And  you  advocate  the  general  adoption  of  such  a 
custom  ?"  our  friend  asked,  getting  back  to  the  sar 
casm  of  his  opening  note.  "  Suppose  a  larger  dinner, 

64 


SUPERIORITY  OF  OUR  INFERIORS 

a  fashionable  dinner,  with  half  a  dozen  men  waiters? 
That  sort  of  thing  might  do  at  the  table  of  a  reformer, 
which  only  the  more  advanced  were  invited  to;  but  it 
wouldn't  work  with  the  average  retarded  society  woman 
or  clubman." 

"What  good  thing  works  with  them?"  we  retorted, 
spiritedly.  "  But  no,  the  custom  would  not  be  readily 
adopted  even  among  enlightened  thinkers.  We  do  not 
insist  upon  it;  the  men  and  the  maids  might  object; 
they  might  not  like  knowing  the  kind  of  people  who  are 
sometimes  asked  to  quite  good  houses.  To  be  sure, 
they  are  not  obliged  to  recognize  them  out  of  the 
house." 

"  But  what,"  our  friend  asked,  "  has  all  this  got 
to  do  with  the  question  of  i  the  decent  respect '  due 
from  domestics,  as  you  prefer  to  call  them,  to  their 
employers  ?" 

"  As  in  that  case  of  the  dairymaids  which  we  be 
gan  with?  But  why  was  any  show  of  respect  due  from 
them?  Was  it  nominated  in  the  bond  that  for  their 
four  or  five  dollars  a  week  they  were  to  stand  up  when 
their  '  mistress  '  and  her  '  company '  entered  the  room? 
Why,  in  fine,  should  any  human  being  respect  another, 
seeing  what  human  beings  generally  are  ?  We  may  love 
one  another,  but  respect!  ~No9  those  maids  might,  and 
probably  did,  love  their  mistress;  but  they  felt  that 
they  could  show  their  love  as  well  sitting  down  as  stand 
ing  up.  They  would  not  stand  up  to  show  their  love 
for  one  another." 

"  Then  you  think  there  is  some  love  lost  between 
the  master  and  man  or  mistress  and  maid  nowadays," 
our  beaten  antagonist  feebly  sneered. 

"  The  masters  and  mistresses  may  not,  but  the  men 
and  maids  may,  have  whole  treasures  of  affection  ready 
to  lavish  at  the  first  sign  of  a  desire  for  it;  they  do 

65 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

not  say  so,  for  they  are  not  very  articulate.  In  the 
mean  time  the  masters  and  mistresses  want  more  than 
they  have  paid  for.  They  want  honor  as  well  as  obedi 
ence,  respect  as  well  as  love,  the  sort  of  thing  that 
money  used  to  buy  when  it  was  worth  more  than  it  is 
now.  Well,  they  won't  get  it.  They  will  get  it  less 
and  less  as  time  goes  on.  Whatever  the  good  new 
times  may  bring,  they  won't  bring  back  the  hypocritical 
servility  of  the  good  old  times.  They — " 

We  looked  round  for  our  visiting  reader,  but  he  had 
faded  back  into  the  millions  of  readers  whom  we  are 
always  addressing  in  print. 


VII 

UNIMPORTANCE  OF  WOMEN  IN  REPUBLICS 

A  VISITOR  of  the  Easy  Chair  who  seemed  to  have  no 
conception  of  his  frequency,  and  who  was  able  to  sup 
ply  from  his  imagination  the  welcome  which  his  host 
did  not  always  hurry  to  offer  him,  found  a  place  for 
himself  on  the  window-sill  among  the  mistaken  MSS. 
sent  in  the  delusion  that  the  editor  of  the  Chair  was  the 
editor  of  the  magazine. 

"  I  have  got  a  subject  for  you,"  he  said. 

"  Have  you  ever  heard,"  we  retorted,  "  of  carrying 
coals  to  Newcastle  ?  What  made  you  think  we  wanted 
a  subject?" 

"  Merely  that  perfunctory  air  of  so  many  of  your 
disquisitions.  I  should  think  you  would  feel  the  want 
yourself.  Your  readers  all  feel  it  for  you." 

"  Well,  we  can  tell  you,"  we  said,  "  that  there  could 
be  no  greater  mistake.  We  are  turning  away  subjects 
from  these  premises  every  day.  They  come  here,  hat 
in  hand,  from  morning  till  night,  asking  to  be  treated ; 
and  after  dark  they  form  a  Topic  Line  at  our  door, 
begging  for  the  merest  pittance  of  a  notice,  for  the 
slightest  allusion,  for  the  most  cursory  mention.  Do 
you  know  that  there  are  at  least  two  hundred  thousand 
subjects  in  this  town  out  of  a  job  now?  If  you  have 
got  a  subject,  you  had  better  take  it  to  the  country 
press;  the  Xew  York  magazines  and  reviews  are  over- 

67 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

stocked  with  them;  the  newspapers,  morning  and  even 
ing,  are  simply  inundated  with  subjects;  subjects  are 
turned  down  every  Sunday  in  the  pulpits ;  they  cannot 
get  standing-room  in  the  theatres.  Why,  we  have  just 
this  moment  dismissed  a  subject  of  the  first  inter 
est.  Have  you  heard  how  at  a  late  suffrage  meeting 
one  lady  friend  of  votes  for  women  declared  herself 
an  admirer  of  monarchies  because  they  always  gave 
women  more  recognition,  more  honor,  than  republics  V 

"  No,  I  haven't,"  our  visitor  said. 

"  Well,  it  happened,"  we  affirmed.  "  But  every  nook 
and  cranny  of  our  brain  was  so  full  of  subjects  that 
we  simply  could  not  give  this  a  moment's  considera 
tion,  and  we  see  that  all  the  other  editors  in  New  York 
were  obliged  to  turn  the  cold  shoulder  to  it,  though 
they  must  have  felt,  as  we  did,  that  it  was  of  prime 
importance.7' 

From  a  position  of  lounging  ease  our  visitor  sat  up, 
and  began  to  nurse  one  of  his  knees  between  his  clasped 
hands.  "  But  if,"  he  asked,  "  you  had  been  able  to  con 
sider  the  subject,  what  should  you  have  said  ?" 

"  There  are  a  great  many  ways  of  considering  a 
subject  like  that,"  we  replied.  "  We  might  have  taken 
the  serious  attitude,  and  inquired  how  far  the  female 
mind,  through  the  increasing  number  of  Anglo-Amer 
ican  marriages  in  our  international  high  life,  has  be 
come  honeycombed  with  monarchism.  We  might  have 
held  that  the  inevitable  effect  of  such  marriages  was  to 
undermine  the  republican  ideal  at  the  very  source  of 
the  commonwealth's  existence,  and  by  corrupting  the 
heart  of  American  motherhood  must  have  weakened  the 
fibre  of  our  future  citizenship  to  the  point  of  supinely 
accepting  any  usurpation  that  promised  ranks  and  titles 
and  the  splendor  of  court  life." 

"  Wouldn't  you  have  been  rather  mixing  your  meta- 

68 


WOMEN    IN    REPUBLICS 

phors?"  our  visitor  asked,  with  an  air  of  having  fol 
lowed  us  over  a  difficult  country. 

"  In  a  cause  like  that,  no  patriotic  publicist  would 
have  minded  mixing  his  metaphors.  He  would  have 
felt  that  the  great  thing  was  to  keep  his  motives  pure ; 
and  in  treating  such  a  subject  our  motives  would  have 
remained  the  purest,  whatever  became  of  our  meta 
phors.  At  the  same  time  this  would  not  have  pre 
vented  our  doing  justice  to  the  position  taken  by  that 
friend  of  votes  for  women.  We  should  have  frankly 
acknowledged  that  there  was  a  great  deal  to  be  said 
for  it,  and  that  republics  had  hitherto  been  remiss  in 
not  officially  acknowledging  the  social  primacy  of  wom 
an,  but,  in  fact,  distinctly  inviting  her  to  a  back  seat 
in  public  affairs.  We  should  then  have  appealed  to 
our  thoughtful  readers  to  give  the  matter  their  most 
earnest  attention,  and  with  the  conservatism  of  all  seri 
ous  inquirers  we  should  have  urged  them  to  beware  of 
bestowing  the  suffrage  on  a  class  of  the  community  dis 
posed  so  boldly  to  own  its  love  of  the  splendors  of  the 
state.  Would  it  be  sage,  would  it  be  safe,  to  indulge 
with  democratic  equality  a  sex  which  already  had  its 
eyes  on  the  flattering  inequality  of  monarchy?  Per 
haps  at  this  point  we  should  digress  a  little  and  men 
tion  Montesquieu,  whose  delightful  Spirit  of  Laws  we 
have  lately  been  reading.  We  should  remind  the 
reader,  who  would  like  to  think  he  had  read  him  too, 
how  Montesquieu  distinguishes  between  the  principles 
on  which  the  three  sorts  of  government  are  founded : 
civic  virtue  being  the  base  of  a  republic,  honor  the 
ruling  motive  in  the  subjects  of  a  monarchy,  and  fear 
the  dominant  passion  in  the  slaves  of  a  despotism. 
Then  we  should  ask  whether  men  were  prepared  to 
intrust  the  reins  of  government  to  women  when  they 
had  received  this  timely  intimation  that  women  were 

69 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

more  eager  to  arrive  splendidly  than  to  bring  the  car 
of  state  in  safety  to  the  goal.  How  long  would  it  be, 
we  should  poignantly  demand,  before  in  passing  from 
the  love  of  civic  virtue  to  the  ambition  of  honor,  we 
should  sink  in  the  dread  of  power  ?" 

Our  visitor  was  apparently  not  so  deeply  impressed 
by  the  treatment  of  the  subject  here  outlined  as  we 
had  been  intending  and  expecting  he  should  be.  He 
asked,  after  a  moment,  "  Don't  you  think  that  would  be 
rather  a  heavy-handed  way  of  dealing  with  the  matter  ?" 

"  Oh,'7  we  returned,  "  we  have  light  methods  of 
treating  the  weightiest  questions.  There  is  the  semi- 
ironical  vein,  for  instance,  which  you  must  have  noticed 
a  good  deal  in  us,  and  perhaps  it  would  be  better  suited 
to  the  occasion." 

"  Yes  ?"  our  visitor  suggested. 

"  Yes,"  we  repeated.  "  In  that  vein  we  should  ques 
tion  at  the  start  whether  any  such  praise  of  monarchy 
had  been  spoken,  and  then  we  should  suppose  it  had, 
and  begin  playfully  to  consider  what  the  honors  and 
distinctions  were  that  women  had  enjoyed  under  mon 
archy.  We  should  make  a  merit  at  the  start  of  throw 
ing  up  the  sponge  for  republics.  We  should  own  they 
had  never  done  the  statesmanlike  qualities  of  women 
justice.  We  should  glance,  but  always  a  little  mocking 
ly,  at  the  position  of  woman  in  the  Greek  republics,  and 
contrast,  greatly  to  the  republican  disadvantage,  her 
place  in  the  democracy  of  Athens  with  that  she  held  in 
the  monarchy  of  Sparta.  We  should  touch  upon  the  fact 
that  the  Athenian  women  were  not  only  not  in  politics, 
but  were  not  even  in  society,  except  a  class  which  could 
be  only  fugitively  mentioned,  and  we  should  freely 
admit  that  the  Spartan  women  were  the  heroic  inspira 
tion  of  the  men  in  all  the  virtues  of  patriotism  at  home 

as  well  as  in  the  field.     We  should  recognize  the  sort 

70 


WOMEN    IN    HE  PUBLICS 

of  middle  station  women  held  in  the  Roman  republic, 
where  they  were  not  shut  up  in  the  almost  Oriental 
seclusion  of  Athenian  wives,  nor  invited  to  a  share  in 
competitive  athletics  like  the  Spartan  daughters.  We 
should  note  that  if  a  Spartan  mother  had  the  habit  of 
bidding  her  son  return  with  his  shield  or  on  it,  a  Ro 
man  mother  expressed  a  finer  sense  of  her  importance 
in  the  state  when  she  intimated  that  it  was  enough  for 
her  to  be  the  parent  of  the  Gracchi.  But  we  should  not 
insist  upon  our  point,  which,  after  all,  would  not  prove 
that  the  decorative  quality  of  women  in  public  life  was 
recognized  in  Rome  as  it  always  has  been  in  mon 
archies,  and  we  should  recur  to  the  fact  that  this  was 
the  point  which  had  been  made  against  all  republics. 
Coming  down  to  the  Italian  republics,  we  should  have 
to  own  that  Venice,  with  her  ducal  figurehead,  had 
practically  a  court  at  which  women  shone  as  they  do  in 
monarchies;  while  in  Florence,  till  the  Medici  estab 
lished  themselves  in  sovereign  rule,  women  played 
scarcely  a  greater  part  than  in  Athens.  It  was  only 
with  the  Medici  that  we  began  to  hear  of  such  dis 
tinguished  ladies  as  Bianca  Cappello;  and  in  the  long, 
commonplace  annals  of  the  Swiss  commonwealth  we 
should  be  able  to  recall  no  female  name  that  lent  lustre 
to  any  epoch.  We  should  contrast  this  poverty  with 
the  riches  of  the  French  monarchy,  adorned  with  the 
memories  of  Agnes  Sorel,  of  .Diane  de  Poitiers,  of 
Madame  de  Montespan,  of  Madame  de  Pompadour, 
following  one  another  in  brilliant  succession,  and  shar 
ing  not  only  the  glory  but  the  authority  of  the  line  of 
princes  whose  affections  they  ruled.  Of  course,  we 
should  have  to  use  an  ironical  gravity  in  concealing 
their  real  quality  and  the  character  of  the  courts  where 
they  flourished ;  and  in  comparing  the  womanless  ob 
scurity  of  the  English  Commonwealth  with  the  ferni- 

71 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

nine  effulgence  of  the  Restoration,  we  should  seek  a 
greater  effect  in  our  true  aim  by  concealing  the  name 
and  nature  of  the  ladies  who  illustrated  the  court  of 
Charles  II." 

"  And  what  would  your  true  aim  be  ?"  our  visitor 
pressed,  with  an  unseemly  eagerness  which  we  chose  to 
snub  by  ignoring  it. 

"  As  for  the  position  of  women  in  despotisms,"  we 
continued,  "  we  should  confess  that  it  seemed  to  be  as 
ignobly  subordinate  as  that  of  women  in  republics. 
They  were  scarcely  more  conspicuous  than  the  Citi- 
zenesses  who  succeeded  in  the  twilight  of  the  One  and 
Indivisible  the  marquises  and  comtesses  and  duchesses 
of  the  Ancien  Regime,  unless  they  happened,  as  they 
sometimes  did,  to  be  the  head  of  the  state.  Without 
going  back  to  the  semi-mythical  Semiramis,  we  should 
glance  at  the  characters  of  Cleopatra  and  certain  Byz 
antine  usurpresses,  and  with  a  look  askance  at  the  two 
empresses  of  Russia,  should  arrive  at  her  late  imperial 
majesty  of  China.  The  poor,  bad  Isabella  of  Spain 
would  concern  us  no  more  than  the  great,  good  Victoria 
of  England,  for  they  were  the  heads  of  monarchies  and 
not  of  despotisms;  but  we  should  subtly  insinuate  that 
the  reigns  of  female  sovereigns  were  nowhere  adorned 
by  ladies  of  the  distinction  so  common  as  hardly  to  be 
distinction  in  the  annals  of  kings  and  emperors.  What 
famous  beauty  embellished  the  court  of  Elizabeth  or 
either  Mary?  Even  Anne's  Mrs.  Masham  was  not  a 
shining  personality,  and  her  Sarah  of  Marlborough  was 
only  a  brilliant  shrew. 

"  At  this  point  we  should  digress  a  little,  but  we 
should  pursue  our  inquiry  in  the  same  satirical  tenor. 
We  hope  we  are  not  of  those  moralists  who  assume  a 
merit  in  denouncing  the  international  marriages  which 

have  brought  our  women,  some  to  think  tolerantly  and 

72 


WOMEN    IN    EEPUBLICS 

some  to  think  favorably  of  a  monarchy  as  affording 
greater  scope  for  their  social  genius.  But  we  should 
ask,  with  the  mock-seriousiicss  befitting  such  a  psycho 
logical  study,  how  it  was  that,  while  American  girls 
married  baronets  and  viscounts  and  earls  and  dukes, 
almost  none,  if  any,  of  their  brothers  married  the  sis 
ters  or  daughters  of  such  noblemen.  It  could  not  be 
that  they  were  not  equally  rich  and  therefore  equally 
acceptable,  and  could  it  be  that  they  made  it  a  matter 
of  conscience  not  to  marry  ladies  of  title?  Were  our 
men,  then,  more  patriotic  than  our  women?  Were 
men  naturally  more  republican  than  women  ? 

u  This  question  would  bring  us  to  the  pass  Avhere 
we  should  more  or  less  drop  the  mocking  mask.  We 
should  picture  a  state  of  things  in  which  we  had  act 
ually  arrived  at  a  monarchy  of  our  own,  with  a  real 
sovereign  and  a  nobility  and  a  court,  and  the  rest  of 
the  tradition.  With  a  sudden  severity  we  should  ask 
where,  since  they  could  not  all  be  of  the  highest  rank, 
our  women  would  consent  to  strike  the  procession  of 
precedence?  How,  with  their  inborn  and  inbred  no 
tions  of  the  deference  due  their  sex,  with  that  pride  of 
womanhood  which  our  republican  chivalry  has  cher 
ished  in  them,  they  would  like,  when  they  went  to 
court,  to  stand,  for  hours  perhaps,  while  a  strong  young 
man,  or  a  fat  old  man,  or  a  robust  man  in  the  prime 
of  life,  remained  seated  in  the  midst  of  them  ?  Would 
it  flatter  their  hopes  of  distinction  to  find  the  worst 
scenes  of  trolley-car  or  subway  transit  repeated  at  the 
highest  social  function  in  the  land,  with  not  even  a 
hanging-strap  to  support  their  weariness,  their  weak 
ness,  or,  if  we  must  say  it,  their  declining  years  ? 
Would  the  glory  of  being  part  of  a  spectacle  testifying 
in  our  time  to  the  meanness  and  rudeness  of  the  past 
be  a  compensation  for  the  aching  legs  and  breaking 
6  73 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

backs  under  the  trailing  robes  and  the  nodding  plumes 
of  a  court  dress?" 

"  That  would  be  a  telling  stroke/'  our  visitor  said, 
"  but  wouldn't  it  be  a  stroke  retold  ?  It  doesn't  seem 
to  me  very  new." 

"  No  matter,"  we  said.  "  The  question  is  not  what 
a  thing  is,  but  how  it  is  done.  You  asked  how  we 
should  treat  a  given  subject,  and  we  have  answered." 

"  And  is  that  all  you  could  make  of  it  ?" 

"  By  no  means.  As  subjects  are  never  exhausted, 
so  no  subject  is  ever  exhausted.  We  could  go  on  with 
this  indefinitely.  We  could  point  out  that  the  trouble 
was,  with  us,  not  too  much  democracy,  but  too  little; 
that  women's  civic  equality  with  men  was  perhaps  the 
next  step,  and  not  the  social  inequality  among  persons 
of  both  sexes.  Without  feeling  that  it  affected  our 
position,  we  would  acknowledge  that  there  was  now 
greater  justice  for  women  in  a  monarchy  like  Great 
Britain  than  in  a  republic  like  the  United  States ;  with 
shame  we  would  acknowledge  it;  but  we  would  never 
admit  that  it  was  so  because  of  the  monarchism  of  the 
first  or  the  republicanism  of  the  last.  We  should  finally 
be  very  earnest  with  this  phase  of  our  subject,  and  we 
should  urge  our  fair  readers  to  realize  that  citizenship 
was  a  duty  as  well  as  a  right.  We  should  ask  them 
before  accepting  the  suffrage  to  consider  its  responsi 
bilities  and  to  study  them  in  the  self-sacrificing  at 
titude  of  their  husbands  and  fathers,  or  the  brothers 
of  one  another,  toward  the  state.  We  should  make 
them  observe  that  the  actual  citizen  was  not  immediate 
ly  concerned  with  the  pomps  and  glories  of  public  life; 
that  parties  and  constituencies  were  not  made  up  of 
one's  fellow-aristocrats,  but  were  mostly  composed  of 
plebeians  very  jealous  of  any  show  of  distinction,  and 
that,  in  spite  of  the  displeasures  of  political  associa- 

74 


WOMEN    IN    REPUBLICS 

tion  with  them,  there  was  no  present  disposition  in 
American  men  to  escape  to  monarchy  from  them.  We 
cannot,  we  should  remind  them,  all  be  of  good  family; 
that  takes  time,  or  has  taken  it ;  and  without  good  fam 
ily  the  chances  of  social  eminence,  or  even  prominence, 
are  small  at  courts.  Distinction  is  more  evenly  dis 
tributed  in  a  democracy  like  ours;  everybody  has  a 
chance  at  it.  To  be  sure,  it  is  not  the  shining  honor 
bestowed  by  kings,  but  when  we  remember  how  often 
the  royal  hand  needs  washing  we  must  feel  that  the 
honor  from  it  may  have  the  shimmer  of  putrescence. 
This  is,  of  course,  the  extreme  view  of  the  case;  and 
the  condition  of  the  royal  hand  is  seldom  scrutinized 
by  those  who  receive  or  those  who  witness  the  honor 
bestowed.  But  the  honor  won  from  one's  fellow-citizens 
is  something  worth  having,  though  it  is  not  expressed 
in  a  ribbon  or  a  title.  Such  honor,  it  seems  probable, 
will  soon  be  the  reward  of  civic  virtue  in  women  as 
well  as  men,  and  we  hope  women  will  not  misprize  it. 
The  great  end  to  be  achieved  for  them  by  the  suffrage 
is  self-government,  but  with  this  goes  the  government 
of  others,  and  that  is  very  pleasant.  The  head  of  our 
state  may  be  a  woman,  chosen  at  no  far-distant  elec 
tion;  and  though  it  now  seems  droll  to  think  of  a 
woman  being  president,  it  will  come  in  due  time  to 
seem  no  more  so  than  for  a  woman  to  be  a  queen  or  an 
empress.  At  any  rate,  we  must  habituate  our  minds 
to  the  idea ;  we  must  realize  it  with  the  hope  it  implies 
that  no  woman  will  then  care  socially  to  outshine  her 
sister;  at  the  most  she  will  be  emulous  of  her  in  civic 
virtue,  the  peculiar  grace  and  glory  of  republics.  We 
understand  that  this  is  already  the  case  in  New  Zea 
land  and  Colorado  and  Wyoming.  It  is  too  soon,  per 
il  aps,  to  look  for  the  effect  of  suffrage  on  the  female 
character  in  Denmark;  it  may  be  mixed,  because  thero 

75 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

the  case  is  complicated  by  the  existence  of  a  king,  which 
may  contaminate  that  civic  virtue  by  the  honor  which 
is  the  moving  principle  in  a  monarchy.  And  now,"  we 
turned  lightly  to  our  visitor,  "  what  is  the  topic  you 
wish  us  to  treat?" 

"  Oh,"  he  said,  rising,  "  you  have  put  it  quite  out 
of  my  head;  I've  been  so  absorbed  in  what  you  were 
saying.  But  may  I  ask  just  where  in  your  treatment 
of  the  theme  your  irony  ends?" 

"  Where  yours  begins,"  we  neatly  responded. 


VIII 

HAVING  JUST  GOT  HOME 

THE  air  of  having  just  got  home  from  Europe  was 
very  evident  in  the  friend  who  came  to  interview  him 
self  with  us  the  other  day.  It  was  not,  of  course,  so 
distinguishing  as  it  would  have  been  in  an  age  of  less 
transatlantic  travel,  but  still,  as  we  say,  it  was  evident, 
and  it  lent  him  a  superiority  which  he  could  not  wholly 
conceal.  His  superiority,  so  involuntary,  would,  if  he 
had  wished  to  dissemble,  have  affirmed  itself  in  the 
English  cut  of  his  clothes  and  in  the  habit  of  his  top- 
hat,  which  was  so  newly  from  a  London  shop  as  not  yet 
to  have  lost  the  whiteness  of  its  sweat-band.  But  his 
difference  from  ourselves  appeared  most  in  a  certain 
consciousness  of  novel  impressions,  which  presently  es 
caped  from  him  in  the  critical  tone  of  his  remarks. 

"  Well,"  we  said,  with  our  accustomed  subtlety, 
"  how  do  you  find  your  fellow-savages  on  returning 
to  them  after  a  three  months'  absence  2" 

"  Don't  ask  me  yet,"  he  answered,  laying  his  hat 
down  on  a  pile  of  rejected  MSS.,  delicately,  so  as 
not  to  dim  the  lustre  of  its  nap.  "  I  am  trying  to 
get  used  to  them,  and  I  have  no  doubt  I  shall  succeed 
in  time.  But  I  would  rather  not  be  hurried  in  my 
opinions." 

"  You  find  some  relief  from  the  summer's  accumula 
tion  of  sky-scrapers  amid  the  aching  void  of  our  man 
ners  ?"  we  suggested. 

77 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  Oh,  the  fresh  sky-scrapers  are  not  so  bad.  You 
won't  find  the  English  objecting  to  them  half  so  much 
as  some  of  our  own  fellows.  But  you  are  all  right 
about  the  aching  void  of  manners.  That  is  truly  the 
bottomless  pit  with  us." 

"  You  think  we  get  worse  ?" 

"  I  don't  say  that,  exactly.     How  could  we  ?" 

"  It  might  be  difficult." 

"  I  will  tell  you  what,"  he  said,  after  a  moment's 
muse.  "  There  does  not  seem  to  be  so  much  an  increase 
of  bad  manners,  or  no  manners,  as  a  diffusion.  The 
foreigners  who  come  to  us  in  hordes,  biit  tolerably  civil 
hordes,  soon  catch  the  native  unmannerliness,  and  are 
as  rude  as  the  best  of  us,  especially  the  younger  gen 
erations.  The  older  people,  Italians,  Czechs,  Poles, 
Greeks,  Assyrians,  or  whatever  nationalities  now  com 
pose  those  hordes,  remain  somewhat  in  the  tradition  of 
their  home  civility;  but  their  children,  their  grand 
children,  pick  up  our  impoliteness  with  the  first  words 
of  our  language,  or  our  slang,  which  they  make  their 
adoptive  mother-tongue  long  before  they  realize  that 
it  is  slang.  When  they  do  realize  it,  they  still  like  it 
better  than  language,  and  as  no  manners  are  easier  than 
manners,  they  prefer  the  impoliteness  they  find  waiting 
them  here.  I  have  no  doubt  that  their  morals  improve ; 
we  have  morals  and  to  spare.  They  learn  to  carry 
pistols  instead  of  knives;  they  shoot  instead  of  stab- 
bing." 

"  Have  you  been  attacked  with  any  particular 
type  of  revolver  since  your  return  ?"  we  inquired, 
caustically. 

"  I  have  been  careful  not  to  give  offence." 

"  Then  why  are  you  so  severe  upon  your  fellow- 
savages,  especially  the  minors  of  foreign  extrac 
tion  r 

78 


HAVING    JUST    GOT     HOME 

"  I  was  giving  the  instances  which  I  supposed  I  was 
asked  for;  and  I  am  only  saying  that  I  have  found 
our  manners  merely  worse  quantitatively,  or  in  the 
proportion  of  our  increasing  population.  But  this 
prompt  succession  of  the  new  Americans  to  the  heri 
tage  of  the  old  Americans  is  truly  grievous.  They  must 
so  soon  outnumber  us,  three  to  one,  ten  to  one,  twenty, 
fifty,  and  they  must  multiply  our  incivilities  in  geo 
metrical  ratio.  At  Boston,  where  I  landed — " 

"  Oh,  you  landed  at  Boston !"  we  exclaimed,  as  if 
this  accounted  for  everything;  but  we  were  really  only 
trying  to  gain  time.  "  If  you  had  landed  at  New 
York,  do  you  think  your  sensibilities  would  have  suf 
fered  in  the  same  degree  ?"  We  added,  inconsequently 
enough,  "  We  always  supposed  that  Boston  was  ex 
emplary  in  the  matters  you  are  complaining  of." 

"  And  when  you  interrupted  me,  with  a  want  of 
breeding  which  is  no  doubt  national  rather  than  in 
dividual,  I  was  going  on  to  say  that  I  found  much  al 
leviation  from  a  source  whose  abundant  sweetness  I  had 
forgotten.  I  mean  the  sort  of  caressing  irony  which 
has  come  to  be  the  most  characteristic  expression  of 
our  native  kindliness.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  our 
kindliness.  Whatever  we  Americans  of  the  old  race- 
suicidal  stock  are  not,  we  are  kind ;  and  I  think  that 
our  expression  of  our  most  national  mood  has  acquired 
a  fineness,  a  delicacy,  with  our  people  of  all  degrees, 
unknown  to  any  other  irony  in  the  world.  Do  you 
remember  The  House  luith  the  Green  Shutters — I  can 
never  think  of  the  book  without  a  pang  of  personal 
grief  for  the  too-early  death  of  the  author — how  the 
bitter,  ironical  temper  of  the  Scotch  villagers  is  real 
ized  ?  Well,  our  ironical  temper  is  just  the  antithesis 
of  that.  It  is  all  sweetness,  but  it  is  of  the  same  origin 
as  that  of  those  terrible  villagers:  it  comes  from  that 

79 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

perfect,  that  familiar  understanding,  that  penetrating 
reciprocal  intelligence,  of  people  who  have  lived  inti 
mately  in  one  another's  lives,  as  people  in  small  com 
munities  do.  We  are  a  small  community  thrown  up 
large,  as  they  say  of  photographs;  we  are  not  so  much 
a  nation  as  a  family;  we  each  of  us  know  just  what 
any  other,  or  all  others,  of  us  intend  to  the  finest  shade 
of  meaning,  by  the  lightest  hint." 

"  Ah !"  we  breathed,  quite  as  if  we  were  a  character 
in  a  novel  which  had  inspired  the  author  with  a  new 
phrase.  "  Now  you  are  becoming  interesting.  Should 
you  mind  giving  a  few  instances?" 

"  Well,  that  is  not  so  easy.  But  I  may  say  that  the 
friendly  ironies  began  for  us  as  soon  as  we  were  out 
of  the  more  single-minded  keeping  of  the  ship's  stew 
ards,  who  had  brought  our  hand-baggage  ashore,  and, 
after  extracting  the  last  shilling  of  tip  from  us,  had 
delivered  us  over  to  the  keeping  of  the  customs  officers. 
It  began  with  the  joking  tone  of  the  inspectors,  who 
surmised  that  we  were  not  trying  to  smuggle  a  great 
value  into  the  country,  and  with  their  apologetic  re 
grets  for  bothering  us  to  open  so  many  trunks.  They 
implied  that  it  was  all  a  piece  of  burlesque,  which  we 
were  bound  mutually  to  carry  out  for  the  gratification 
of  a  Government  which  enjoyed  that  kind  of  thing. 
They  indulged  this  whim  so  far  as  to  lift  out  the  trays, 
to  let  the  Government  see  that  there  was  nothing  duti 
able  underneath,  where  they  touched  or  lifted  the  con 
tents  with  a  mocking  hand,  and  at  times  carried  the 
joke  so  far  as  to  have  some  of  the  things  removed.  But 
they  helped  put  them  back  with  a  smile  for  the  odd 
taste  of  the  Government.  I  do  not  suppose  that  an 
exasperating  duty  was  ever  so  inexasperatingly  ful 
filled." 

"  Aren't  you  rather  straining  to  make  out  a  case  ? 

80 


HAVING    JUST    GOT    HOME 

\\Y  have  heard  of  travellers  who  had  a  very  different 
experience." 

"  At  Xew  York,  yes,  where  we  are  infected  with  the 
foreign  singleness  more  than  at  Boston.  Perhaps  a 
still  livelier  illustration  of  our  ironical  temperament 
was  given  me  once  before  when  I  brought  some  things 
into  Boston.  There  were  some  Swiss  pewters,  which 
the  officers  joined  me  for  a  moment  in  trying  to  make 
out  were  more  than  two  hundred  years  old ;  but  failing, 
jocosely  levied  thirty  per  cent,  ad  valorem  on  them; 
and  then  in  the  same  gay  spirit  taxed  me  twenty  per 
cent,  on  a  medallion  of  myself  done  by  an  American 
sculptor,  who  had  forgotten  to  verify  an  invoice  of  it 
before  the  American  consul  at  the  port  of  shipment." 

"  It  seems  to  us,"  we  suggested,  "  that  this  was  a 
piece  of  dead  earnest." 

"  The  fact  was  earnest,"  our  friend  maintained, 
u  but  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  realized  was  that  of 
a  brotherly  persuasion  that  I  would  see  the  affair  in 
its  true  light,  as  a  joke  that  was  on  me.  It  was  a  joke 
that  cost  me  thirty  dollars." 

"  Still,  we  fail  to  see  the  irony  of  the  transaction." 

"  Possibly,"  our  friend  said,  after  a  moment's  muse, 
"  I  am  letting  my  sense  of  another  incident  color  the 
general  event  too  widely.  But  before  I  come  to  that 
I  wish  to  allege  some  proofs  of  the  national  irony 
which  I  received  on  two  occasions  when  landing  in 
Xew  York.  On  the  first  of  these  occasions  the  com 
missioner  who  came  aboard  the  steamer,  to  take  the 
sworn  declaration  of  the  passengers  that  they  were  not 
smugglers,  recognized  my  name  as  that  of  a  well-known 
financier  who  had  been  abroad  for  a  much-needed  rest, 
and  personally  welcomed  me  home  in  such  terms  that 
I  felt  sure  of  complete  exemption  from  the  duties  levied 
on  others.  When  we  landed  I  found  that  this  good 

81 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

friend  had  looked  out  for  me  to  the  extent  of  getting  me 
the  first  inspector,  and  he  had  guarded  my  integrity 
to  the  extent  of  committing  me  to  a  statement  in  sev- 
cralty  of  the  things  my  family  had  bought  abroad,  so 
that  I  had  to  pay  twenty-eight  dollars  on  my  daughter's 
excess  of  the  hundred  dollars  allowed  free,  although 
my  wife  was  bringing  in  only  seventy  -  five  dollars' 
value,  and  I  less  than  fifty." 

"  You  mean  that  you  had  meant  to  lump  the  im 
ports  and  escape  the  tax  altogether  ?"  we  asked. 

"  Something  like  that." 

"  And  the  officer's  idea  of  caressing  irony  was  to  let 
you  think  you  could  escape  equally  well  by  being  per 
fectly  candid?" 

"  Something  like  that." 

"  And  what  was  the  other  occasion  ?" 

"  Oh,  it  was  when  I  had  a  letter  to  the  customs  of 
ficer,  and  he  said  it  would  be  all  right,  and  then  fur 
nished  me  an  inspector  who  opened  every  piece  of  my 
baggage  just  as  if  I  had  been  one  of  the  wicked." 

We  could  not  help  laughing,  and  our  friend  grinned 
appreciatively.  "  And  what  was  that  supreme  instance 
of  caressing  irony  which  you  experienced  in  Boston?" 
we  pursued. 

"  Ah,  there  is  something  I  don't  think  you  can  ques 
tion.  But  I  didn't  experience  it;  I  merely  observed 
it.  We  were  coming  down  the  stairs  to  take  our  hack 
at  the  foot  of  the  pier,  and  an  elderly  lady  who  was 
coming  down  with  us  found  the  footing  a  little  in 
secure.  The  man  in  charge  bade  her  be  careful,  and 
then  she  turned  upon  him  in  severe  reproof,  and  scolded 
him  well.  She  told  him  that  he  ought  to  have  those 
stairs  looked  after,  for  otherwise  somebody  would  be 
killed  one  of  these  days.  '  Well,  ma'am,'  he  said,  '  I 
shouldn't  like  that.  I  was  in  a  railroad  accident  once, 

82 


HAVING    JUST    GOT    HOME 

But  I  tell  you  what  you  do.  The  next  time  you  come 
over  here,  you  just  telephone  me,  and  I'll  have  these 
steps  fixed.  Or,  I'll  tell  you:  you  just  write  ine  a  letter 
and  let  me  know  exactly  how  you  want  'em  fixed,  and 
I'll  see  to  it  myself.'  " 

"  That  was  charming,"  we  had  to  own,  "  and  it  was 
of  an  irony  truly  caressing,  as  you  say.  Do  you  think 
it  was  exactly  respectful?" 

"  It  was  affectionate,  and  I  think  the  lady  liked  it  as 
much  as  any  of  us,  or  as  the  humorist  himself." 

"  Yes,  it  was  just  so  her  own  son  might  have  joked 
her,"  we  assented.  "  But  tell  us,  Croesus,"  we  con 
tinued,  in  the  form  of  Socratic  dialogue,  "  did  you  find 
at  Boston  that  multiple  unmannerliness  which  you  say 
is  apparent  from  the  vast  increase  of  adoptive  citizens  ? 
We  have  been  in  the  habit  of  going  to  Boston  when 
we  wished  to  refresh  our  impression  that  we  had  a 
native  country;  when  we  wished  to  find  ourselves  in 
the  midst  of  the  good  old  American  faces,  Avhich  were 
sometimes  rather  arraigning  in  their  expression,  but 
not  too  severe  for  the  welfare  of  a  person  imaginably 
demoralized  by  a  "Now  York  sojourn." 

Our  friend  allowed  himself  time  for  reflection.  "  I 
don't  think  you  could  do  that  now  with  any  great  hope 
of  success.  I  should  say  that  the  predominant  face  in 
Boston  now  was  some  type  of  Irish  face.  You  know- 
that  the  civic  affairs  of  Boston  are  now  in  the  hands 
of  the  Irish.  And  with  reason,  if  the  Irish  are  in  the 
majority." 

"  In  New  York  it  has  long  been  the  same  without 
the  reason,"  we  dreamily  suggested. 

"  In  Boston,"  our  friend  went  on,  without  regarding 
us,  "  the  Catholics  outvote  the  Protestants,  and  not 
because  they  vote  oftener,  but  because  there  are  more 
of  them." 

83 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  And  the  heavens  do  not  fall  ?" 

"  It  is  not  a  question  of  that ;  it  is  a  question  of 
whether  the  Irish  are  as  amiable  and  civil  as  the 
Americans,  now  they  are  on  top." 

"  We  always  supposed  they  were  one  of  the  most 
amiable  and  civil  of  the  human  races.  Surely  you 
found  them  so?" 

"  I  did  at  Queenstown,  but  at  Boston  I  had  not  the 
courage  to  test  the  fact.  I  would  not  have  liked  to  try 
a  joke  with  one  of  them  as  I  would  at  Queenstown,  or 
as  I  would  at  Boston  with  an  American.  Their  faces 
did  not  arraign  me,  but  they  forbade  me.  It  was  very; 
curious,  and  I  may  have  misread  them." 

"Oh,  probably  not,"  we  lightly  mocked.  "They 
were  taking  it  out  of  you  for  ages  of  English  oppres 
sion  ;  they  were  making  you  stand  for  the  Black  Crom 
well." 

"  Oh,  very  likely,"  our  friend  said,  in  acceptance  of 
our  irony,  because  he  liked  irony  so  much.  "  But,  all 
the  same,  I  thought  it  a  pity,  as  I  think  it  a  pity  when 
I  meet  a  surly  Italian  here,  who  at  home  would  be  so 
sweet  and  gentle.  It  is  somehow  our  own  fault.  We 
have  spoiled  them  by  our  rudeness;  they  think  it  is 
American  to  be  as  rude  as  the  Americans.  They  mis 
take  our  incivility  for  our  liberty." 

"  There  is  something  in  what  you  say,"  we  agreed, 
"  if  you  will  allow  us  to  be  serious.  They  are  here 
in  our  large,  free  air,  without  the  parasites  that  kept 
them  in  bounds  in  their  own  original  habitat.  We  must 
invent  some  sort  of  culture  which  shall  be  constructive 
and  not  destructive,  and  will  supply  the  eventual  good 
without  the  provisional  evil." 

"  Then  we  must  go  a  great  way  back,  and  begin  with 
our  grandfathers,  with  the  ancestors  who  freed  us  from 
Great  Britain,  but  did  not  free  themselves  from  the 

84 


HAVING    JUST    GOT    HOME 

illusion  that  equality  resides  in  incivility  and  honesty 
in  bluntness.  That  was  something  they  transmitted  to 
us  intact,  so  that  we  are  now  not  only  the  best-hearted 
hut  the  worst-mannered  of  mankind.  If  our  habitual 
carriage  were  not  rubber-tired  by  irony,  we  should  be 
an  intolerable  offence,  if  not  to  the  rest  of  the  world, 
at  least  to  ourselves.  By-the-way,  since  I  came  back 
T  have  been  reading  a  curious  old  book  by  James  Feni- 
more  Cooper,  which  I  understand  made  a  great  stir  in 
its  day.  Do  you  know  it? — Home  as  Found?" 

"  We  know  it  as  one  may  know  a  book  which  one 
has  not  read.  It  pretty  nearly  made  an  end  of  James 
Fenimore  Cooper,  we  believe.  His  fellow-countrymen 
fell  on  him,  tooth  and  nail.  We  didn't  take  so  kindly  to 
criticism  in  those  days  as  we  do  now,  when  it  merely 
tickles  the  fat  on  our  ribs,  and  we  respond  with  the 
ironic  laughter  you  profess  to  like  so  much.  What  is 
the  drift  of  the  book  besides  the  general  censure  ?" 

"  Oh,  it  is  the  plain,  dull  tale  of  an  American  fam 
ily  returning  home  after  a  long  sojourn  in  Europe  so 
high-bred  that  you  want  to  kill  them,  and  so  superior 
to  their  home-keeping  countrymen  that,  vulgarity  for 
vulgarity,  you  much  prefer  the  vulgarity  of  the  Amer 
icans  who  have  not  been  away.  The  author's  uncon 
sciousness  of  the  vulgarity  of  his  exemplary  people  is 
not  the  only  amusing  thing  in  the  book.  They  arrive 
for  a  short  stay  in  New  York  before  they  go  to  their 
country-seat  somewhere  up  the  State,  and  the  sketches 
of  Tsew  York  society  as  it  was  in  the  third  or  fourth 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  certainly  delight 
ful:  society  was  then  so  exactly  like  what  it  is  now  in 
spirit.  Of  course,  it  was  very  provincial,  but  society 
is  always  and  everywhere  provincial.  One  thing  about 
it  then  was  different  from  what  it  is  now:  I  mean  the 
attitude  of  the  stay-at-homes  toward  the  been-abroads. 

85 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

They  revered  them  and  deferred  to  them,  and  they 
called  them  Hajii,  or  travellers,  in  a  cant  which  must 
have  been  very  common,  since  George  William  Curtis 
used  the  same  Oriental  term  for  his  Howadji  in  Syria 
and  his  Nile  Notes  of  a  Howadji" 

"  We  must  read  it,"  we  said,  with  the  readiness  of 
one  who  never  intends  to  read  the  book  referred  to. 
"  What  you  say  of  it  is  certainly  very  suggestive.  But 
how  do  you  account  for  the  decay  of  the  reverence  and 
deference  in  which  the  Hajii  were  once  held  ?" 

"  Well,  they  may  have  overworked  their  superiority." 

"  Or  ?"  we  prompted. 

"  The  stay  -  at  -  homes  may  have  got  onto  the  been- 
abroads  in  a  point  where  we  all  fail,  unless  we  have 
guarded  ourselves  very  scrupulously." 

"  And  that  is  ?" 

"  There  is  something  very  vulgarizing  for  Amer 
icans  in  the  European  atmosphere,  so  that  we  are  apt 
to  come  back  worse-mannered  than  we  went  away,  and 
vulgarer  than  the  untravelled,  in  so  far  as  it  is  im- 
politer  to  criticise  than  to  be  criticised." 

"  And  is  that  why  your  tone  has  been  one  of  uni 
versal  praise  for  your  countrymen  in  the  present  inter 
view?" 

Our  friend  reached  for  his  hat,  smoothed  a  ruffled 
edge  of  the  crown,  and  blew  a  speck  of  dust  from  it. 
"  One  reasons  to  a  conclusion,"  he  said,  "  not  from  it." 


IX 

NEW  YORK  TO  THE  HOME-COMER'S  EYE 

OUR  friend  came  in  with  challenge  in  his  eye,  and 
though  a  month  had  passed,  we  knew,  as  well  as  if  it 
were  only  a  day,  that  he  had  come  to  require  of  us  the 
meaning  in  that  saying  of  ours  that  New  York  derived 
her  inspiration  from  the  future,  or  would  derive  it,  if 
she  ever  got  it. 

''  Well,"  he  said,  "  have  you  cleared  your  mind  yet 
sufficiently  to  '  pour  the  day  '  on  mine  ?  Or  hadn't  you 
any  meaning  in  what  you  said  ?  I've  sometimes  sus 
pected  it." 

The  truth  is  that  we  had  not  had  very  much  mean 
ing  of  the  sort  that  you  stand  and  deliver,  though  we 
were  aware  of  a  large,  vague  wisdom  in  our  words. 
But  ^we  perceived  that  our  friend  had  no  intention  of 
helping  us  out,  and  on  the  whole  we  thought  it  best 
to  temporize. 

"In  the  first  place,"  we  said,  "we  should  like  to 
know  what  impression  New  York  made  on  you  when 
you  arrived  here,  if  there  was  any  room  left  on  your 
soul-surface  after  the  image  of  Boston  had  been  im 
printed  there." 

No  man  is  unwilling  to  expatiate  concerning  himself, 
even  when  he  is  trying  to  comer  a  fellow-man.  This 
principle  of  human  nature  perhaps  accounts  for  the 
frequent  failure  of  thieves  to  catch  thieves,  in  spite 

87 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

of  the  proverb ;  the  pursuit  suggests  somehow  the  pleas 
ures  of  autobiography,  and  while  they  are  reminded  of 
this  and  that  the  suspects  escape  the  detectives.  Our 
friend  gladly  paused  to  reply : 

"  I  wish  I  could  say !  It  was  as  unbeautif  ul  as  it 
could  be,  but  it  was  wonderful!  Has  anybody  else 
ever  said  that  there  is  no  place  like  it?  On  some  ac 
counts  I  am  glad  there  isn't;  one  place  of  the  kind  is 
enough;  but  what  I  mean  is  that  I  went  about  all  the 
next  day  after  arriving  from  Boston,  with  Europe  still 
in  my  brain,  and  tried  for  something  suggestive  of  some 
other  metropolis,  and  failed.  There  was  no  question  of 
Boston,  of  course;  that  was  clean  out  of  it  after  my 
first  glimpse  of  Fifth  Avenue  in  taxicabbing  hotelward 
from  the  Grand  Central  Station.  But  I  tried  with 
Berlin,  and  found  it  a  drearier  Boston;  with  Paris, 
and  found  it  a  blonder  and  blither  Boston;  with  Lon 
don,  and  found  it  sombrely  irrelevant  and  incompar 
able.  ~New  York  is  like  London  only  in  not  being  like 
any  other  place,  and  it  is  next  to  London  in  magnitude. 
So  far,  so  good ;  but  the  resemblance  ends  there,  though 
New  York  is  oftener  rolled  in  smoke,  or  mist,  than 
we  willingly  allow  to  Londoners.  Both,  however,  have 
an  admirable  quality  which  is  not  beauty.  One  might 
call  the  quality  picturesque  immensity  in  London,  and 
in  New  York  one  might  call  it — " 

He  compressed  his  lips,  and  shut  his  eyes  to  a  fine 
line  for  the  greater  convenience  of  mentally  visioning. 

"  What  ?"  we  impatiently  prompted. 

"  I  was  going  to  say,  sublimity.  What  do  you  think 
of  sublimity?" 

"  We  always  defend  New  York  against  you.  We  ac 
cept  sublimity.  How  ?" 

"  I  was  thinking  of  the  drive  up  or  down  Fifth  Ave 
nue,  the  newer  Fifth  Avenue,  which  has  risen  in  marble 

88 


TO    THE     IIOME-COMEK'S    EYE 

and  Indiana  limestone  from  the  brownstone  and  brick 
of  a  former  age,  the  Augustan  Fifth  Avenue  which  has 
replaced  that  old  Lincolnian  Fifth  Avenue.  You  get 
the  effect  best  from  the  top  of  one  of  the  imperial 
motor-omnibuses  which  have  replaced  the  consular  two- 
horse  stages;  and  I  should  say  that  there  was  more 
sublimity  to  the  block  between  Sixteenth  Street  and 
Sixtieth  than  in  the  other  measures  of  the  city's  extent." 

"  This  is  very  gratifying  to  us  as  a  fond  .New- 
Yorker;  but  why  leave  out  of  the  reach  of  sublimity 
the  region  of  the  sky  -  scrapers,  and  the  spacious,  if 
specious,  palatiality  of  the  streets  on  the  upper  West 
Side  ?" 

"I  don't,  altogether,"  our  friend  replied.  "Es 
pecially  I  don't  leave  out  the  upper  West  Side.  That 
has  moments  of  being  even  beautiful.  But  there  is  a 
point  beyond  which  sublimity  cannot  go;  and  that  is 
about  the  fifteenth  story.  When  you  get  a  group  of 
those  sky-scrapers,  all  soaring  beyond  this  point,  you 
have,  in  an  inverted  phase,  the  unimpressiveness  which 
Taine  noted  as  the  real  effect  of  a  prospect  from  the 
summit  of  a  very  lofty  mountain.  The  other  day  I 
found  myself  arrested  before  a  shop-window  by  a  large 
photograph  labelled  'The  Heart  of  ^Tew  York.'  It 
was  a  map  of  that  region  of  sky-scrapers  which  you 
seem  to  think  not  justly  beyond  the  scope  of  attributive 
sublimity.  It  was  a  horror;  it  set  my  teeth  on  edge; 
it  made  me  think  of  scrap-iron — heaps,  heights,  pin 
nacles  of  scrap-iron.  Don't  ask  me  why  scrap-iron! 
Go  and  look  at  that  photograph  and  you  will  under 
stand.  Below  those  monstrous  cliffs  the  lower  roofs 
were  like  broken  foot-hills;  the  streets  were  chasms, 
gulches,  gashes.  It  looked  as  if  there  had  been  a  con 
flagration,  and  the  houses  had  been  burned  into  the 
cellars ;  and  the  eye  sought  the  nerve-racking  tangle  of 
7  80 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

pipe  and  wire  which  remains  among  the  ruins  after  a 
great  fire.  Perhaps  this  was  what  made  me  think  of 
scrap-iron — heaps,  heights,  pinnacles  of  it.  No,  there 
was  no  sublimity  there.  Some  astronomers  have  lat 
terly  assigned  bounds  to  immensity,  but  the  sky-scrapers 
go  beyond  these  bounds;  they  are  primordial,  abnor 
mal." 

"  You  strain  for  a  phrase,"  we  said,  "  as  if  you  felt 
the  essential  unreality  of  your  censure.  Aren't  you 
aware  that  mediaeval  Florence,  mediaeval  Siena,  must 
have  looked,  with  their  innumerable  towers,  like  our 
sky  -  scrapered  New  York  ?  They  must  have  looked 
quite  like  it." 

"  And  very  ugly.  It  was  only  when  those  towers, 
which  were  devoted  to  party  warfare  as  ours  are  de 
voted  to  business  warfare,  were  levelled,  that  Florence 
became  fair  and  Siena  superb.  I  should  not  object 
to  a  New  York  of  demolished  sky  -  scrapers.  They 
would  make  fine  ruins;  I  would  like  to  see  them  as 
ruins.  In  fact,  now  I  think  of  it,  '  The  Heart  of  New 
York '  reminded  me  of  the  Roman  Forum.  I  wonder 
I  didn't  think  of  that  before.  But  if  you  want  sub 
limity,  the  distinguishing  quality  of  New  York,  as  I 
feel  it  more  and  more,  while  I  talk  of  it,  you  must 
take  that  stretch  of  Fifth  Avenue  from  a  motor-bus 
top." 

"  But  that  stretch  of  Fifth  Avenue  abounds  in  sky 
scrapers!"  we  lamented  the  man's  inconsistency. 

"  Sky-scrapers  in  subordination,  yes.  There  is  one 
to  every  other  block.  There  is  that  supreme  sky 
scraper,  the  Flatiron.  But  just  as  the  Flatiron,  since 
the  newspapers  have  ceased  to  celebrate  its  pranks  with 
men's  umbrellas,  and  the  feathers  and  flounces  and 
'  tempestuous  petticoats '  of  the  women,  has  sunk  back 
into  a  measurable  inconspicuity,  so  all  the  other  tall 

90 


TO    THE     HOME-COMER'S    EYE 

buildings  have  somehow  harmonized  themselves  with 
the  prospect  and  no  longer  form  the  barbarous  archi 
tectural  chaos   of  lower  New   York.      I   don't  object 
to  their  being  mainly  business  houses   and  hotels;   I 
think  that  it  is  much  more  respectable  than  being  pal 
aces  or  war-like  eminences,  Guelf  or  Ghibelline;  and 
as  I  ride  up-town  in  my  motor-bus,  I  thrill  with  their 
grandeur  and  glow  with  their  condescension.    Yes,  they 
condescend ;  and  although  their  tall  white  flanks  climb 
in  the  distance,  they  seem  to  eink  on  nearer  approach, 
and  amiably  decline  to  disfigure  the  line  of  progress, 
or  to  dwarf  the  adjacent  edifices.     Down-town,  in  the 
heart  of  New  York,  poor  old  Trinity  looks  driven  into 
the  ground  by  the  surrounding  heights  and  bulks ;  but 
along  my  sublime  upper  Fifth  Avenue  there  is  spire 
after  spire  that  does  not  unduly  dwindle,  but  looks  as 
if  tenderly,   reverently,   protected  by  the  neighboring 
giants.     They  are  very  good  and  kind  giants,  appar 
ently.     But  the  acme  of  the  sublimity,  the  quality  in 
which  I  find  my  fancy  insisting  more  and  more,  is  in 
those  two  stately  hostelries,  the  Gog  and  Magog  of  that 
giant  company,  which  guard  the  approach  to  the  Park 
like  mighty  pillars,  the  posts  of  vast  city  gates  folded 
back  from  them." 

"  Come !"  we  said.  "  This  is  beginning  to  be  some 
thing  like." 

"  In  November,"  our  friend  said,  taking  breath  for 
a  fresh  spurt  of  praise,  "  there  were  a  good  many  sym 
pathetic  afternoons  which  lent  themselves  to  motor- 
bus  progress  up  that  magnificent  avenue,  and  if  you 
mounted  to  your  place  on  top,  about  three  o'clock,  you 
looked  up  or  down  the  long  vista  of  blue  air  till  it 
turned  mirk  at  either  vanishing-point  under  a  sky  of 
measureless  cloudlessness.  That  dimness,  almost  smoki- 
ness  at  the  closes  of  the  prospect,  was  something  un- 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

speakably  rich.    It  made  me  think,  quite  out  of  relation 
or  relevance,  of  these  nobly  mystical  lines  of  Keats : 

'His   soul   shall   know  the   sadness  of  her  night, 
And  be  among  her  cloudy  trophies  hung/  " 

We  closed  our  eyes  in  the  attempt  to  grope  after 
him.  "  Explain,  O  Howadji  1" 

"  I  would  rather  not,  as  you  say  when  you  can't," 
he  replied.  "  But  I  will  come  down  a  little  nearer 
earth,  if  you  prefer.  Short  of  those  visionary  dis 
tances  there  are  features  of  the  prospect  either  way  in 
which  I  differently  rejoice.  One  thing  is  the  shining 
black  roofs  of  the  cabs,  moving  and  pausing  like  pro 
cessions  of  huge  turtles  up  and  down  the  street;  obey 
ing  the  gesture  of  the  mid-stream  policemen  where  they 
stand  at  the  successive  crossings  to  stay  them,  and  float 
ing  with  the  coming  and  going  tides  as  he  drops  his 
inhibitory  hand  and  speeds  them  in  the  continuous 
current.  That  is,  of  course,  something  you  get  in 
greater  quantity,  though  not  such  intense  quality,  in 
a  London  '  block/  but  there  is  something  more  fluent, 
more  mercurially  impatient,  in  a  New  York  street 
jam,  which  our  nerves  more  vividly  partake.  Don't 
ask  me  to  explain !  I  would  rather  not !"  he  said,  and 
we  submitted. 

He  went  on  to  what  seemed  an  unjustifiable  remove 
from  the  point.  "  Nothing  has  struck  me  so  much, 
after  a  half-year's  absence,  in  this  novel  revelation  of 
sublimity  in  New  York,  as  the  evident  increase  on  the 
street  crowds.  The  city  seems  to  have  grown  a  whole 
new  population,  and  the  means  of  traffic  and  trans 
portation  have  been  duplicated  in  response  to  the  de 
mand  of  the  multiplying  freights  and  feet."  Our 
friend  laughed  in  self-derision,  as  he  went  on.  "  I 

92 


TO    THE    HOME-COMEirS    EYE 

remember  when   we  first   begaii   to   have   the   electric 
trolleys—" 

'  Trams,  we  believe  you  call  them,"  we  insinuated. 

"  Not  when  Fin  on  this  side,"  he  retorted,  and  he 
resumed :  "  I  used  to  be  afraid  to  cross  the  avenues 
where  they  ran.  At  certain  junctions  I  particularly 
took  my  life  in  my  hand,  and  my  i  courage  in  both 
hands.'  Where  Sixth  Avenue  flows  into  Fifty-ninth 
Street,  and  at  Sixth  Avenue  and  Thirty-fourth  Street, 
and  at  Dead  Man's  Curve  (he  has  long  been  resus 
citated)  on  Fourteenth  Street,  I  held  my  breath  till 
I  got  over  alive,  and  I  blessed  Heaven  for  my  safe 
passage  at  Forty-second  and  Twenty-third  streets,  and 
at  divers  places  on  Third  Avenue.  Now  I  regard  these 
interlacing  iron  currents  with  no  more  anxiety  than  I 
would  so  many  purling  brooks,  with  stepping-stones  in 
them  to  keep  my  feet  from  the  wet :  they  are  like  gentle 
eddies — soft,  clear,  slow  tides — where  one  may  pause 
in  the  midst  at  will,  compared  with  the  deadly  expanses 
of  Fifth  Avenue,  with  their  rush  of  all  mariner  of 
vehicles  over  the  smooth  asphalt  surface.  There  I 
stand  long  at  the  brink;  I  look  for  a  policeman  to 
guide  and  guard  my  steps;  I  crane  my  neck  forward 
from  my  coign  of  vantage  and  count  the  cabs,  the  taxi- 
cabs,  the  carriages,  the  private  automobiles,  the  motor- 
buses,  the  express-wagons,  and  calculate  my  chances. 
Then  I  shrink  back.  If  it  is  a  corner  where  there  is 
no  policeman  to  bank  the  tides  up  on  either  hand  and 
lead  me  over,  I  wait  for  some  bold,  big  team  to  make 
the  transit  of  the  avenue  from  the  cross-street,  and 
then  in  its  lee  I  find  my  way  to  the  other  side.  As 
for  the  trolleys,  I  now  mock  myself  of  them,  as  Thack 
eray's  Frenchmen  were  said  to  say  in  their  peculiar 
English.  (I  wonder  if  they  really  did?)  It  is  the 
taxicabs  that  now  turn  my  he-art  to  water.  It  is  aston- 

'  1)3 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

ishing  how  they  have  multiplied — they  have  multi 
plied  even  beyond  the  ratio  of  our  self-reduplicating 
population.  There  are  so  many  already  that  this  morn 
ing  I  read  in  my  paper  of  a  trolley-car  striking  a  horse- 
cab!  The  reporter  had  written  quite  unconsciously, 
just  as  he  used  to  write  horseless  carriage.  Yes,  the 
motor-cab  is  now  the  type,  the  norm,  and  the  horse-cab 
is  the — the— the— " 

He  hesitated  for  the  antithesis,  and  we  proposed 
"Abnorm?" 

"  Say  abnorm !  It  is  hideous,  but  I  don't  know  that 
it  is  wrong.  Where  was  I  2" 

"  You  had  got  quite  away  from  the  sublimity  of  New 
York,  which  upon  the  whole  you  seemed  to  attribute  to 
the  tall  buildings  along  Fifth  Avenue.  We  should  like 
you  to  explain  again  why,  if  '  The  Heart  of  New  York,' 
with  its  sky-scrapers,  made  you  think  of  scrap-iron,  the 
Flatiron  soothed  your  lacerated  sensibilities  2" 

"  The  Flatiron  is  an  incident,  an  accent  merely,  in 
the  mighty  music  of  the  Avenue,  a  happy  discord  that 
makes  for  harmony.  It  is  no  longer  nefarious,  or  even 
mischievous,  now  the  reporters  have  got  done  attribu 
ting  a  malign  meteorological  influence  to  it.  I  wish 
I  could  say  as  much  for  the  white  marble  rocket  pres 
ently  soaring  up  from  the  east  side  of  Madison  Square, 
and  sinking  the  beautiful  reproduction  of  the  Giralda 
tower  in  the  Garden  half-way  into  the  ground.  As  I 
look  at  this  pale  yellowish  brown  imitation  of  the 
Seville  original,  it  has  a  pathos  which  I  might  not 
make  you  feel.  But  I  would  rather  not  look  away 
from  Fifth  Avenue  at  all.  It  is  astonishing  how  that 
street  has  assumed  and  resumed  all  the  larger  and 
denser  life  of  the  other  streets.  Certain  of  the  ave 
nues,  like  Third  and  Sixth,  remain  immutably  and 
characteristically  noisy  and  ignoble ;  and  Fifth  Avenue 

94 


TO    THE     HOME-CO  ME  ITS    EYE 

has  not  reduced  them  to  insignificance  as  it  has  Broad 
way.  That  is  now  a  provincial  High  Street  beside  its 
lordlier  compeer;  but  I  remember  when  Broadway 
stormed  and  swarmed  with  busy  life.  Why,  I  re 
member  the  party-colored  'buses  which  used  to  thun 
der  up  and  down;  and  I  can  fancy  some  Eip  Van 
Winkle  of  the  interior  returning  to  the  remembered 
terrors  and  splendors  of  that  mighty  thoroughfare, 

and  expecting  to  be  killed  at  every  crossing I  can 

fancy    such    a    visitor    looking    round    in    wonder    at 
the    difference    and    asking    the    last    decaying    sur 
vivor  of  the  famous  Broadway  Squad  what  they  had 
done   with   Broadway   from   the   Battery   to   Madison 
Square.  ^  Beyond  that,  to  be  sure,  there  is"a  mighty  flare 
of  electrics  blazoning  the  virtues  of  the  popular 'beers, 
whiskeys,  and  actresses,  which  might  well  mislead  my 
elderly  revisitor  with   the  belief  that  Broadway  was 
only  taken  in  by  day,  and  was  set  out  again  after  dark 
in  its  pristine— I  think  pristine  is  the  word ;  it  used  to 
be— glory.     But  even  by  night  that  special  length  of 
Broadway  lacks  the  sublimity  of  Fifth  Avenue,  as  I 
see  it  or  imagine  it  from  my  motor-bus  top.     /knew 
Fifth  Avenue  in  the  Lincolnian  period  of  brick  and 
brownstone,  when  it  had  a  quiet,  exclusive  beauty,  the 
beauty  of  the  unbroken  sky-line  and  the  regularity  of 
facade  which  it  lias  not  yet  got  back,  and  'may  never 
get.     You  will  get  some  notion  of  it  still  in  Madison 
Avenue,    say   from    Twenty  -  eighth    to    Forty  -  second 
streets,  and  perhaps  you  will  think  it  was  dull  as  well 
as  proud.    It  is  proud  now,  but  it  is  certainly  not  dull. 
1  here  is  something  of  columnar  majesty  in  the  lofty 
flanks  of  these  tall  shops  and  hotels'  as 'you  approach 
them,  which  makes  you  think  of  some  capital  decked 
for  a  national   holiday.     But  in   Fifth   Avenue   it  is 
always  holiday — " 


IMAGINAEY    INTERVIEWS 

"  Enough  of  streets !"  we  cried,  impatiently.  "  Now, 
what  of  men  ?  What  of  that  heterogeneity  for  which 
New  York  is  famous,  or  infamous?  You  noticed  the 
contrasting  Celtic  and  Pelasgic  tribes  in  Boston.  What 
of  them  here,  with  all  the  tribes  of  Israel,  lost  and 
found,  and  the  '  sledded  Polack,'  the  Czech,  the  Hun, 
the  German,  the  Gaul,  the  Gothic  and  Iberian  Span 
iard,  and  the  swart  stranger  from  our  sister  continent 
to  the  southward,  and  the  islands  of  the  seven  seas, 
who  so  sorely  outnumber  us?" 

Our  friend  smiled  thoughtfully.  "Why,  that  is 
very  curious!  Do  you  know  that  in  Fifth  Avemie 
the  American  type  seems  to  have  got  back  its  old  su 
premacy  ?  It  is  as  if  no  other  would  so  well  suit  with 
that  sublimity !  I  have  not  heard  that  race-suicide  has 
been  pronounced  by  the  courts  amenable  to  our  wise 
State  law  against  felo  de  se,  but  in  the  modern  Fifth 
Avenue  it  is  as  if  our  stirp  had  suddenly  reclaimed 
its  old-time  sovereignty.  I  don't  say  that  there  are 
not  other  faces,  other  tongues  than  ours  to  be  seen, 
heard,  there;  far  from  it!  But  I  do  say  it  is  a  sense 
of  the  American  face,  the  American  tongue,  which  pre 
vails.  Once  more,  after  long  exile  in  the  streets  of  our 
own  metropolis,  you  find  yourself  in  an  American  city. 
Your  native  features,  your  native  accents,  have  re 
turned  in  such  force  from  abroad,  or  have  thronged 
here  in  such  multitude  from  the  prospering  Pittsburgs, 
Cincinnatis,  Chicagos,  St.  Louises,  and  San  Franciscos 
of  the  West,  that  you  feel  as  much  at  home  in  Fifth 
Avenue  as  you  would  in  Piccadilly,  or  in  the  Champs 
Ely  sees,  or  on  the  Pincian  Hill.  Yes,  it  is  very 
curious." 

"  Perhaps,"  we  suggested,  after  a  moment's  reflec 
tion,  "  it,  isn't  true." 


X 

CHEAPNESS  OP  THE  COSTLIEST  CITY  ON  EARTH 

"  ONE  of  my  surprises  on  Getting  Back,"  the  more 
or  less  imaginary  interlocutor  who  had  got  back  from 
Europe  said  in  his  latest  visit  to  the  Easy  Chair,  "  is 
the  cheapness  of  the  means  of  living  in  ]^ew  York." 

At  this  the  Easy  ("hair  certainly  sat  up.  "  Stay  not 
a  moment,  llowadji,"  wo  exclaimed,  "  in  removing  our 
deep-seated  prepossession  that  Xew  York  is  the  most 
expensive  place  on  the  planet." 

But  instead  of  instantly  complying  our  friend  fell 
into  a  smiling  muse,  from  which  he  broke  at  last  to 
say:  "I  have  long  been  touched  by  the  pathos  of  a 
fact  which  I  believe  is  not  yet  generally  known.  Do 
you  know  yourself,  with  the  searching  knowledge  which 
is  called  feeling  it  in  your  bones,  that  a  good  many 
Southerners  and  Southerly  Westerners  make  this  town 
their  summer  resort?"  We  intimated  that  want  of 
penetrating  statistics  which  we  perceived  would  gratify 
him,  and  he  went  on.  "  They  put  up  at  our  hotels 
which  in  the  'anguish  of  the  solstice'  they  find  in 
vitingly  vacant.  As  soon  as  they  have  registered  the 
clerk  recognizes  them  as  Colonel,  or  Major,  or  Judge, 
but  gives  them  the  rooms  which  no  amount  of  family  or 
social  prestige  could  command  in  the  season,  and  there 
they  stay,  waking  each  day  from  unmosquitoed  nights 
to  iced-melon  mornings,  until  a  greater  anguish  is  tele- 

07 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

graphed  forward  by  the  Associated  Press.  Then  they 
turn  their  keys  in  their  doors,  and  flit  to  the  neighbor 
ing  Atlantic  or  the  adjacent  Catskills,  till  the  solstice 
recovers  a  little,  and  then  they  return  to  their  hotel 
and  resume  their  life  in  the  city,  which  they  have  al 
most  to  themselves,  with  its  parks  and  drives  and  roof- 
gardens  and  vaudevilles,  unelbowed  by  the  three  or 
four  millions  of  natives  whom  we  leave  behind  us 
when  we  go  to  Europe,  or  ^Newport,  or  Bar  Harbor,  or 
the  Adirondacks.  Sometimes  they  take  furnished  flats 
along  the  Park,  and  settle  into  a  greater  permanency 
than  their  hotel  sojourn  implies.  They  get  the  flats 
at  about  half  the  rent  paid  by  the  lessees  who  sublet 
them,  but  I  call  it  pathetic  that  they  should  count  it 
joy  to  come  where  we  should  think  it  misery  to  stay. 
Still,  everything  is  comparative,  and  I  suppose  they 
are  as  reasonably  happy  in  JSTew  York  as  I  am  in  my 
London  lodgings  in  the  London  season,  where  I  some 
times  stifle  in  a  heat  not  so  pure  and  clear  as  that  I 
have  fled  from/' 

"  Very  well/'  we  said,  dryly,  "  you  have  established 
the  fact  that  the  Southerners  come  here  for  the  sum 
mer  and  live  in  great  luxury;  but  what  has  that  to  do 
with  the  cheapness  of  living  in  'New  York,  which  you 
began  by  boasting  ?" 

"  Ah,  I  was  coming  back  to  that,"  the  Howadji  said, 
with  a  glow  of  inspiration.  "  I  have  been  imagining, 
in  the  relation  which  you  do  not  see,  that  New  York 
can  be  made  the  inexpensive  exile  of  its  own  children 
as  it  has  been  made  the  summer  home  of  those  sym 
pathetic  Southerners.  If  I  can  establish  the  fact  of  its 
potential  cheapness,  as  I  think  I  can,  I  shall  deprive 
them  of  some  reasons  for  going  abroad,  though  I'm  not 
sure  they  will  thank  me,  when  the  reasons  for  Europe 
are  growing  fewer  and  fewer.  Culture  can  now  be 

98 


THE    COSTLIEST    CITY    ON    EARTH 

acquired  almost  as  advantageously  here  as  there.  Ex 
cept  for  the  '  monuments,'  in  which  we  include  all 
ancient  and  modern  masterpieces  in  the  several  arts, 
we  have  no  excuse  for  going  to  Europe,  and  even  in 
these  masterpieces  Europe  is  coming  to  us  so  increas 
ingly  in  every  manner  of  reproduction  that  we  allege 
the  monuments  almost  in  vain.  The  very  ruins  of  the 
past  are  now  so  accurately  copied  in  various  sorts  of 
portable  plasticity  that  we  may  know  them  here  with 
nearly  the  same  emotion  as  on  their  own  ground.  The 
education  of  their  daughters  which  once  availed  with 
mothers  willing  to  sacrifice  themselves  and  their  hus- 
hands  to  the  common  good,  no  longer  avails.  The 
daughters  know  the  far  better  time  they  will  have  at 
home,  and  refuse  to  go,  as  far  as  daughters  may,  and 
in  our  civilization  this,  you  know,  is  very  far.  But  it 
was  always  held  a  prime  reason  and  convincing  argu 
ment  that  Dresden,  Berlin,  Paris,  Home,  and  even 
London,  were  so  much  cheaper  than  New  York  that 
it  was  a  waste  of  money  to  stay  at  home." 

"  Well,  wasn't  it  ?"  we  impatiently  demanded. 

"  I  will  not  say,  for  I  needn't,  as  yet.  There  were 
always  at  the  same  time  philosophers  who  contended 
that  if  we  lived  in  those  capitals  as  we  lived  at  home, 
they  would  be  dearer  than  New  York.  But  what  is 
really  relevant  is  the  question  whether  New  York  isn't 
cheaper  now." 

r>i  We  thought  it  had  got  past  a  question  with  you. 
We  thought  you  began  by  saying  that  New  York  is 
cheaper." 

"  I  can't  believe  I  was  so  crude,"  the  Howadji  re 
turned,  with  a  fine  annoyance.  "  That  is  the  con 
clusion  you  have  characteristically  jumped  to  with 
out  looking  before  you  leap.  I  was  going  to  approach 
the  fact  much  more  delicately,  and  I  don't  know  but 

99  " 


IMAGINAKY    INTEEVIEWS 

what  by  your  haste  you  have  shattered  my  ideal  of  the 
conditions.  But  I'll  own  that  the  great  stumbling- 
hlock  to  my  belief  that  the  means  of  living  in  New 
York  are  cheaper  than  in  the  European  capitals  is  that 
the  house  rents  here  are  so  incomparably  higher  than 
they  are  there.  But  I  must  distinguish  and  say  that 
I  mean  flat-rents,  for,  oddly  enough,  flats  are  much 
dearer  than  houses.  You  can  get  a  very  pretty  little 
house,  in  a  fair  quarter,  with  plenty  of  light  and  a  good 
deal  of  sun,  for  two-thirds  and  sometimes  one-half  what 
you  must  pay  for  a  flat  with  the  same  number  of  rooms, 
mostly  dark  or  dim,  and  almost  never  sunny.  Of 
course,  a  house  is  more  expensive  and  more  difficult 
to  '  run/  but  even  with  the  cost  of  the  greater  service 
and  of  the  furnace  heat  the  rent  does  not  reach  that 
of  a  far  less  wholesome  and  commodious  flat.  There  is 
one  thing  to  be  said  in  favor  of  a  flat,  however,  and 
that  is  the  women  are  in  favor  of  it.  The  feminine 
instinct  is  averse  to  stairs ;  the  sex  likes  to  be  safely 
housed  against  burglars,  and  when  it  must  be  left  alone, 
it  desires  the  security  of  neighbors,  however  strange 
the  neighbors  may  be;  it  likes  the  authority  of  a  jan 
itor,  the  society  of  an  elevator-boy.  It  hates  a  lower 
door,  an  area,  an  ash-barrel,  and  a  back  yard.  But 
if  it  were  willing  to  confront  all  these  inconveniences, 
it  is  intimately,  it  is  osseously,  convinced  that  a  house 
is  not  cheaper  than  a  flat.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  neither 
a  house  nor  a  flat  is  cheap  enough  in  !N"ew  York  to 
bear  me  out  in  my  theory  that  ISTew  York  is  no  more 
expensive  than  those  Old  World  cities.  To  aid  ef 
ficiently  in  my  support  I  must  invoke  the  prices  of 
provisions,  which  I  find,  by  inquiry  at  several  markets 
on  the  better  avenues,  have  reverted  to  the  genial  level 
of  the  earlier  nineteen-hundreds,  before  the  cattle  com 
bined  with  the  trusts  to  send  them  up.  I  won't  prosily 

100 


THE    COSTLIEST    C  I  T  Y/'ft:  :E''llTi:[  '' 

rehearse  the  quotations  of  beef,  muftohy  pork,' 'poultry, 
and  tish ;  they  can  be  had  at  any  dealer's  on  demand ; 
and  they  will  be  found  less,  on  the  whole,  than  in  Lon 
don,  less  than  in  Paris,  less  even  than  in  Rome.     They 
are  greater  no  doubt  than  the  prices  in  our  large  West 
ern  cities,  but  they  are  twenty  per  cent,  less  than  the 
prices  in  Boston,  and  in  the  New  England  towns  which 
hang  upon  Boston's  favor  for  their  marketing.     I  do 
not  know  how  or  why  it  is  that  while  we  wicked  New- 
Yorkers  pay  twenty-five  cents  for  our  beefsteak,  these 
righteous  Bostonians  should  have  to  pay  thirty,  for  the 
same  cut  and  quality.     Here  I  give  twenty  -  eight  a 
pound  for  my  Java  coffee ;  in  the  summer  I  live  near 
an  otherwise  delightful  New  Hampshire  town  where 
I  must  give  thirty-eight.     It  is  strange  that  the  siftings 
of  three  kingdoms,  as  the  Rev.  Mr.  Higginson  called 
his  fellow-Puritans,  should  have  come  in  their  great 
grandchildren  to  a  harder  fate  in  this  than  the  bran  and 
shorts  and  middlings  of  such  harvestings  as  the  fields 
of  Ireland  and   Italy,   of  Holland   and  Hungary,   of 
Poland  and  Transylvania  and  Muscovy  afford.     Per 
haps  it  is  because  those  siftings  have  run  to  such  a 
low  percentage  of  the  whole  New  England  population 
that  they  must  suffer,   along  with  the  refuse   of  the 
mills — the  Mills  of  the  Gods — abounding  in  our  city 
and  its  dependencies. 

"  I  don't  know  how  much  our  housekeepers  note  the 
fall  of  the  prices  in  their  monthly  bills,  but  in  brows 
ing  about  for  my  meals,  as  I  rather  like  to  do,  I  dis 
tinctly  see  it  in  the  restaurant  rates.  I  don't  mean  the 
restaurants  to  which  the  rich  or  reckless  resort,  but 
those  modester  places  which  consult  the  means  of  the 
careful  middle  class  to  which  I  belong.  As  you  know, 
I  live  ostensibly  at  the  Hotel  Universe.  I  have  a  room 
there,  and  that  is  my  address — " 

101 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 


"We  know,7*  we  derisively  murmured.  "  So  few  of 
our  visitors  can  afford  it." 

"  I  can't  afford  it  myself,"  our  friend  said.  "  But 
I  save  a  little  by  breakfasting  there,  and  lunching  and 
dining  elsewhere.  Or,  I  did  till  the  eggs  got  so  bad  that 
I  had  to  go  out  for  my  breakfast,  too.  Now  I  get  per 
fect  eggs,  of  the  day  before,  for  half  the  price  that  the 
extortionate  hens  laying  for  the  Universe  exact  for 
their  last  week's  product.  At  a  very  good  Broadway 
hotel,  which  simple  strangers  from  Europe  think  first 
class,  I  get  a  '  combination '  breakfast  of  fresh  eggs, 
fresh  butter,  and  fresh  rolls,  with  a  pot  of  blameless 
Souchong  or  Ceylon  tea,  for  thirty  cents;  if  I  plunge 
to  the  extent  of  a  baked  apple,  I  pay  thirty-five.  Do 
you  remember  what  you  last  paid  in  Paris  or  Rome 
for  coffee,  rolls,  and  butter  ?" 

"  A  franc  fifty,"  we  remembered. 

"  And  in  London  for  the  same  with  eggs  you  paid 
one  and  six,  didn't  you  ?" 

"  Very  likely,"  we  assented. 

"  Well,  then,  you  begin  to  see.  There  are  several 
good  restaurants  quite  near  that  good  hotel  where  I 
get  the  same  combination  breakfast  for  the  same  price ; 
and  if  I  go  to  one  of  those  shining  halls  which  you  find 
in  a  score  of  places,  up  and  down  Broadway  and  the 
side  streets,  I  get  it  for  twenty-five  cents.  But  though 
those  shining  halls  glare  at  you  with  roofs  and  walls  of 
stainless  tile  and  glass,  and  tables  of  polished  marble, 
their  bill  of  fare  is  so  inflexibly  adjusted  to  the  gen 
eral  demand  that  I  cannot  get  Souchong  or  Ceylon  tea 
for  any  money;  I  can  only  get  Oolong;  otherwise  I 
must  take  a  cup  of  their  excellent  coffee.  If  I  wander 
from  my  wonted  breakfast,  I  can  get  almost  anything 
in  the  old  American  range  of  dishes  for  five  or  ten 
cents  a  portion,  and  the  quality  and  quantity  are  both 

102 


THE    COSTLIEST    CITY    ON 


all  I  can  ask.  As  I  have  learned  upon  inquiry,  the 
great  basal  virtues  of  these  places  are  good  eggs  and 
good  butter  :  I  like  to  cut  from  the  thick  slice  of  butter 
under  the  perfect  cube  of  ice,  better  than  to  have  my 
butter  pawed  into  balls  or  cut  into  shavings,  as  they 
serve  your  butter  in  Europe.  But  I  prefer  having  a 
small  table  to  myself,  with  my  hat  and  overcoat  vis-a-vis 
on  the  chair  opposite,  as  I  have  it  at  that  good  hotel. 
In  those  shining  halls  I  am  elbowed  by  three  others  at 
my  polished  marble  table;  but  if  there  were  more  room 
I  should  never  object  to  the  company.  It  is  the  good, 
kind,  cleanly,  comely  American  average,  which  is  the 
best  company  in  the  world,  with  a  more  than  occasional 
fine  head,  and  faces  delicately  sculptured  by  thought 
and  study.  I  address  myself  fearlessly  to  the  old  and 
young  of  my  own  sex,  without  ever  a  snub  such  as  I 
might  get  from  the  self-respectful  maids  or  matrons 
who  resort  to  the  shining  halls,  severally  or  collectively, 
if  I  ventured  upon  the  same  freedom  with  them.  I 
must  say  that  my  commensals  lunch  or  dine  as  wisely 
as  I  do  for  the  most  part,  but  sometimes  I  have  had  to 
make  my  tacit  criticisms  ;  and  I  am  glad  that  I  forbore 
one  night  with  a  friendly  young  man  at  my  elbow,  who 
had  just  got  his  order  of  butter-cakes  —  " 
"  Butter-cakes  ?"  we  queried. 

i  That  is  what  they  call  a  rich,  round,  tumid  product 
of  the  griddle,  which  they  serve  very  hot,  and  open  to 
close  again  upon  a  large  lump  of  butter.  For  two  of 
those  cakes  and  his  coffee  my  unknown  friend  paid 
fifteen  cents,  and  made  a  supper,  after  which  I  should 
not  have  needed  to  break  my  fast  the  next  morning. 
But  he  fearlessly  consumed  it,  and  while  he  ate  he 
confided  that  he  was  of  a  minor  clerical  employ  in  one 
of  the  great  hotels  near  by,  and  when  I  praised  our 
shining  hall  and  its  guests  he  laughed  and  said  he  came 

103 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 


regularly,  and  lie  always  saw  people  there  who  were 
registered  at  his  hotel:  they  found  it  good  and  they 
found  it  cheap.  I  suppose  you  know  that  New  York 
abounds  in  tables  d'hote  of  a  cheapness  unapproached 
in  the  European  capitals?" 

We  said  we  had  heard  so ;  at  the  same  time  we  tried 
to  look  as  if  we  always  dined  somewhere  in  society, 
but  Heaven  knows  whether  we  succeeded. 

"  The  combination  breakfast  is  a  form  of  table 
d'hote;  and  at  a  very  attractive  restaurant  in  a  good 
place  I  have  seen  such  a  breakfast— fruit,  cereal,  eggs, 
rolls,  and  coffee  —  offered  for  fifteen  cents.  I  have 
never  tried  it,  not  because  I  had  not  the  courage,  but 
because  I  thought  thirty  cents  cheap  enough;  those 
who  do  not  I  should  still  hold  worthy  of  esteem  if  they 
ate  the  fifteen-cent  breakfast.  I  have  also  seen  pla 
carded  a  '  business  men's  lunch '  for  fifteen  cents, 
which  also  I  have  not  tried ;  I  am  not  a  business  man. 
I  make  bold  to  say,  however,  that  I  often  go  for  my 
lunch  or  my  dinner  to  a  certain  Italian  place  on  a  good 
avenue,  which  I  will  not  locate  more  definitely  lest 
you  should  think  me  a  partner  of  the  enterprise,  for 
fifty  and  sixty  cents,  f  vino  compreso.'  The  material  is 
excellent,  and  the  treatment  is  artistic ;  the  company  of 
a  simple  and  self-respectful  domesticity  which  I  think 
it  an  honor  to  be  part  of:  fathers  and  mothers  of  fam 
ilies,  aunts,  cousins,  uncles,  grandparents.  I  do  not 
deny  a  Merry  Widow  hat  here  and  there,  but  the  face 
under  it,  though  often  fair  and  young,  is  not  a  Merry 
Widow  face.  Those  people  all  look  as  kind  and  harm 
less  as  the  circle  which  I  used  to  frequent  farther  down 
town  at  a  fifty-cent  French  table  d'hote,  but  with  a 
bouillabaisse  added  which  I  should  not,  but  for  my 
actual  experiences,  have  expected  to  buy  for  any  money. 
But  there  are  plenty  of  Italian  and  French  tables 

104 


THE    COSTLIEST    CITY     ON    EARTH 

d'hote  for  the  same  price  all  over  town.  If  you  venture 
outside  of  the  Latin  race,  yon  pay  dearer  and  you  fare 
worse,  unless  you  go  to  those  shining  halls  which  I  have 
been  praising.  If  you  go  to  a  German  place,  you  get 
grosser  dishes  and  uncouth  manners  for  more  money; 
I  do  not  know  why  that  amiable  race  should  be  so  dear 
and  rude  in  its  feeding-places,  but  that  is  my  experi 


ence." 


"  You  wander,  you  wander !"  we  exclaimed.  "  Why 
should  we  care  for  your  impressions  of  German  cook 
ing  and  waiting,  unless  they  go  to  prove  or  disprove 
that  living  in  New  York  is  cheaper  than  in  the  Euro 
pean  capitals?" 

"  Perhaps  I  was  going  to  say  that  even  those  Ger 
mans  are  not  so  dear  as  they  are  in  the  fatherland, 
though  rude.  They  do  not  tend  much  if  at  all  to  tables 
d'hote,  but  the  Italians  and  the  French  who  do,  serve 
you  a  better  meal  for  a  lower  price  than  you  would 
get  in  Paris,  or  Rome,  or  Xaples.  There  the  preva 
lent  ideal  is  five  francs,  with  neither  wine  nor  coffee 
included.  I'll  allow  that  the  cheap  table  d'hote  is 
mainly  the  affair  of  single  men  and  women,  and  does 
not  merit  the  consideration  I've  given  it.  If  it  helps 
a  young  couple  to  do  with  one  maid,  or  with  none, 
instead  of  two,  it  makes  for  cheapness  of  living.  Ser 
vice  is  costly  and  it  is  greedy,  and  except  in  large 
households  its  diet  is  the  same  as  the  family's,  so  that 
anything  which  reduces  it  is  a  great  saving.  But  the 
table  d'hote  which  is  cheap  for  one  or  two  is  not  cheap 
for  more,  and  it  is  not  available  if  there  are  children. 
Housing  and  raw-provisioning  and  serving  are  the  main 
questions,  and  in  Europe  the  first  and  last  are  appar 
ently  much  less  expensive.  Marketing  is  undoubtedly 
cheaper  with  us,  and  if  you  count  in  what  you  get  with 
the  newness,  the  wholesomeness,  and  handiness  of  an 

8  105 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

American  flat,  the  rent  is  not  so  much  greater  than  that 
of  a  European  flat,  with  its  elementary  bareness.  You 
could  not,  here,  unless  you  descended  from  the  apart 
ment  to  the  tenement,  hire  any  quarter  where  you 
would  not  be  supplied  with  hot  and  cold  water,  with 
steam  heating,  with  a  bath-room,  and  all  the  rest  of  it." 

"  But,"  we  said,  "  you  are  showing  that  we  are  more 
comfortably  housed  than  the  Europeans,  when  you 
should  be  treating  the  fact  of  relative  cheapness." 

"  I  was  coming  to  that  even  in  the  matter  of 
housing — " 

"It  is  too  late  to  come  to  it  in  this  paper.  You 
have  now  talked  three  thousand  words,  and  that  is 
the  limit.  You  must  be  silent  for  at  least  another 
month." 

"  But  if  I  have  something  important  to  say  at  this 
juncture?  If  I  may  not  care  to  recur  to  the  subject 
a  month  hence  ?  If  I  may  have  returned  to  Europe  by 
that  time  ?" 

"  Then  you  can  the  better  verify  your  statistics. 
But  the  rule  in  this  place  is  inflexible.  Three  thousand 
words,  neither  more  nor  less.  The  wisdom  of  Solomon 
would  be  blue-pencilled  if  it  ran  to  more." 


XI 

WAYS  AND  MEANS  OF  LIVING  IN  NEW  YORK 

THE  Rowadji,  or  the  Hajii,  PS  people  called  his  sort 
in  the  days  of  Home  as  Found,  was  prompt  to  the 
hour  when  his  month's  absence  was  up,  and  he  began 
without  a  moment's  delay:  '  But  of  course  the  lion  in 
the  way  of  my  thesis  that  New  York  is  comparatively 
cheap  is  the  rent,  the  rent  of  flats  or  houses  in  the  parts 
of  the  town  where  people  of  gentle  tastes  and  feelings 
are  willing  to  live.  Provisions  are  cheap ;  furnishings 
of  all  kinds  are  cheap;  service,  especially  when  you 
mainly  or  wholly  dispense  with  it,  is  cheap,  for  one 
maid  here  will  do  the  work  of  two  abroad,  and  if  the 
mistress  of  the  house  does  her  own  work  she  can  make 
the  modern  appliances  her  handmaids  at  no  cost  what 
ever.  It  is  ridiculous,  in  fact,  leaving  all  those  beauti 
ful  and  ingenious  helps  in  housework  to  the  hirelings 
who  work  only  twice  as  hard  with  them  for  more  wages 
than  the  hirelings  of  countries  where  they  don't  exist." 

"  Don't  be  so  breathless,"  we  interposed.  "  You  will 
only  be  allowed  to  talk  three  thousand  words,  whether 
you  talk  fast  or  slow,  and  you  might  as  well  take  your 
ease." 

"  That  is  true,"  the  Howadji  reflected.  "  But  I  am 
full  of  rny  subject,  and  T  have  the  feeling  that  I  am 
getting  more  out.  even  if  T  can't  get  more  in,  by  talk 
ing  fast.  The  rent  question  itself,"  he  hurried  on, 

107 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  lias  been  satisfactorily  solved  of  late  in  the  new  in 
vention  of  co-operative  housing  which  you  may  have 
heard  of." 

We  owned  that  we  had,  with  the  light  indifference 
of  one  whom  matters  of  more  money  or  less  did  not 
concern,  and  our  friend  went  on. 

"  The  plan  was  invented,  you  know,  by  a  group  of 
artists  who  imagined  putting  up  a  large  composite 
dwelling  in  a  street  where  the  cost  of  land  was  not 
absolutely  throat-cutting,  and  finishing  it  with  tasteful 
plainness  in  painted  pine  and  the  like,  but  equipping 
it  with  every  modern  convenience  in  the  interest  of 
easier  housekeeping.  The  characteristic  and  impera 
tive  fact  of  each  apartment  was  a  vast  and  lofty  studio 
whose  height  was  elsewhere  divided  into  two  floors, 
and  so  gave  abundant  living-rooms  in  little  space.  The 
proprietorial  group  may  have  been  ten,  say,  but  the 
number  of  apartments  was  twice  as  many,  and  the  basic 
hope  was  to  let  the  ten  other  apartments  for  rents  which 
would  carry  the  expense  of  the  whole,  and  house  the 
owners  at  little  or  no  cost.  The  curious  fact  is  that 
this  apparently  too  simple-hearted  plan  worked.  The 
Philistines,  as  the  outsiders  may  be  called,  liked  being 
near  the  self-chosen  people;  they  liked  the  large  life- 
giving  studio  which  imparted  light  and  air  to  the  two 
floors  of  its  rearward  division,  and  they  eagerly  paid 
the  sustaining  rents.  The  fortunate  experience  of  one 
esthetic  group  moved  others  to  like  enterprises;  and 
now  there  are  eight  or  ten  of  these  co-operative  studio 
apartment-houses  in  different  parts  of  the  town." 

"  With  the  same  fortunate  experience  for  the  own 
ers?"  we  queried,  with  suppressed  sarcasm. 

"  Not  exactly/'  our  friend  assented  to  our  intention. 
"  The  successive  groups  have  constantly  sought  more 
central,  more  desirable,  more  fashionable  situations. 

108 


MEANS    OF    LIVING    IN    NEW    YORK 

They  have  built  not  better  than  they  knew,  for  that 
could  not  be,  but  costlier,  and  they  have  finished  in 
hard  woods,  with  marble  halls  and  marbleized  hall- 
boys,  and  the  h'rst  expense  has  been  much  greater;  but 
actual  disaster  has  not  yet  followed;  perhaps  it  is  too 
soon ;  we  must  not  be  impatient ;  but  what  has  already 
happened  is  what  happens  with  other  beautiful  things 
that  the  aesthetic  invent.  It  has  happened  notoriously 
with  all  the  most  lovable  and  livable  summer  places 
which  the  artists  and  authors  find  out  and  settle  them 
selves  cheaply  and  tastefully  in.  The  Philistines,  a 
people  wholly  without  invention,  a  cuckoo  tribe  in 
capable  of  self  -  nesting,  stumble  upon  those  joyous 
homes  by  chance,  or  by  mistaken  invitation.  They 
submit  meekly  enough  at  first  to  be  sub-neighbors  ruled 
in  all  things  by  the  genius  of  the  place;  but  once  in, 
they  begin  to  lay  their  golden  eggs  in  some  humble 
cottage,  and  then  they  hatch  out  broods  of  palatial 
villas  equipped  with  men  and  maid  servants,  horses, 
carriages,  motors,  yachts;  and  if  the  original  settlers 
remain  it  is  in  a  helpless  inferiority,  a  broken  spirit, 
and  an  overridden  ideal.  This  tragical  history  is  the 
same  at  Magnolia,  and  at  York  Harbor,  and  at  Dublin, 
and  at  Bar  Harbor;  even  at  Xewport  itself;  t!  e  co 
operative  housing  of  New  York  is  making  a  like  his 
tory.  It  is  true  that  the  Philistines  do  not  come  in  and 
dispossess  the  autochthonic  groups;  these  will  not  sell 
to  them;  but  they  have  imagined  doing  on  a  sophisti 
cated  and  expensive  scale  what  the  aesthetics  have  done 
simply  and  cheaply.  They  are  buying  the  pleasanter 
sites,  and  are  building  co-operatively;  though  they  have 
already  eliminated  the  studio  and  the  central  principle, 
and  they  build  for  the  sole  occupancy  of  the  owners. 
But  the  cost  of  their  housing  then  is  such  that  it  puts 
them  out  of  the  range  of  our  inquiry  as  their  riches  has 

109 


IMAGINAKY    INTERVIEWS 

already  put  them  beyond  the  range  of  our  sympathy. 
It  still  remains  for  any  impecunious  group  to  buy  the 
cheaper  lots,  and  build  simpler  houses  on  the  old  studio 
principle,  with  rents  enough  to  pay  the  cost  of  opera 
tion,  and  leave  the  owners  merely  the  interest  and  taxes, 
with  the  eventual  payment  of  these  also  by  the  tenants. 
Some  of  the  studio  apartments  are  equipped  with 
restaurants,  and  the  dwellers  need  only  do  such  light 
housekeeping  as  ladies  may  attempt  without  disgrace, 
or  too  much  fatigue." 

"  Or  distraction  from  their  duties  to  society,"  we 
suggested. 

"  It  depends  upon  what  you  mean  by  society ;  it's 
a  very  general  and  inexact  term.  If  you  mean  formal 
dinners,  dances,  parties,  receptions,  and  all  that,  the 
lightest  housekeeping  would  distract  from  the  duties  to 
it;  but  if  you  mean  congenial  friends  willing  to  come 
in  for  tea  in  the  afternoon,  or  to  a  simple  lunch,  or 
not  impossibly  a  dinner,  light  housekeeping  is  not  in 
compatible  with  a  conscientious  recognition  of  society's 
claims.  I  think  of  two  ladies,  sisters,  one  younger  and 
one  older  than  the  other,  who  keep  house  not  lightly, 
but  in  its  full  weight  of  all  the  meals,  for  their  father 
and  Ivother,  and  yet  are  most  gracefully  and  most  ac 
ceptably  in  the  sort  of  society  which  Jane  Austen  says 
is,  if  not  good,  the  best :  the  society  of  gifted,  cultivated, 
travelled,  experienced,  high-principled  people,  capable 
of  respecting  themselves  and  respecting  their  qualities 
wherever  they  find  them  in  others.  These  ladies  do 
not  pretend  to  '  entertain,'  but  their  table  is  such  that 
they  are  never  afraid  to  ask  a  friend  to  it.  In  a  mo 
ment,  if  there  is  not  enough  or  not  good  enough,  one  of 
them  conjures  something  attractive  out  of  the  kitchen, 
and  you  sit  down  to  a  banquet.  The  sisters  are  both 
of  that  gentle  class  of  semi-invalids  whose  presence  in 

110 


MEANS    OF    LIVING    IN    NEW    YORK 

our  civilization  enables  us  to  support  the  rudeness  of 
the  general  health.  They  employ  aesthetically  the  beau 
tiful  alleviations  with  which  science  has  rescued  do 
mestic  drudgery  from  so  much  of  the  primal  curse;  it 
is  a  pleasure  to  see  them  work;  it  is  made  so  graceful, 
so  charming,  that  you  can  hardly  forbear  taking  hold 
yourself." 

"  But  you  do  forbear,"  we  interposed ;  "  and  do  you 
imagine  that  their  example  is  going  to  prevail  with  the 
great  average  of  impecunious  American  housewives,  or 
sisters,  or  daughters  ?" 

"  No,  they  will  continue  to  i  keep  a  girl '  whom  they 
will  enslave  to  the  performance  of  duties  which  they 
would  be  so  much  better  for  doing  themselves,  both 
in  body  and  mind,  for  that  doing  would  develop  in 
them  the  hospitable  soul  of  those  two  dear  ladies.  They 
will  be  in  terror  of  the  casual  guest,  knowing  well  that 
they  cannot  set  before  him  things  fit  to  eat.  They  have 
no  genius  for  housekeeping,  which  is  one  with  home- 
making:  they  do  not  love  it,  and  those  ladies  do  love 
it  in  every  detail,  so  that  their  simple  flat  shines 
throughout  with  a  lustre  which  pervades  the  kitchen 
and  the  parlor  and  the  chamber  alike.  It  is  the  one- 
girl  household,  or  the  two  -  girl,  which  makes  living 
costly  because  it  makes  living  wasteful ;  it  is  not  the 
luxurious  establishments  of  the  rich  which  are  to  blame 
for  our  banishment  to  the  mythical  cheapness  of  Eu 
rope." 

We  were  not  convinced  by  the  eloquence  which  had 
overheated  our  friend,  and  we  objected :  "  But  those 
ladies  you  speak  of  give  their  whole  lives  to  house 
keeping,  and  ought  cheapness  to  be  achieved  at  such 
an  expense  ?" 

"  In  the  first  place,  they  don't ;  and,  if  they  do,  what 

do  the  one-girl  or  the  two-girl  housekeepers  give  their 

111 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

lives  to?  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  the  ten  or  twenty 
girl  housekeepers  ?  The  ladies  of  whom  I  speak  have 
always  read  the  latest  book  worth  reading;  they  have 
seen  the  picture  which  people  worth  while  are  talking 
of;  they  know  through  that  best  society  which  likes  a 
cup  of  their  tea  all  the  esthetic  gossip  of  the  day ;  they 
are  part  of  the  intellectual  movement,  that  part  which 
neither  the  arts  nor  the  letters  can  afford  to  ignore; 
they  help  to  make  up  the  polite  public  whose  opinions 
are  the  court  of  final  appeal." 

"  They  strike  us,"  we  said,  stubbornly,  "  as  rather 
romantic." 

"  Ah,  there  you  are !  Well,  they  are  romantic — 
romantic  like  a  gentle  poem,  like  an  idyllic  tale;  but 
I  deny  that  they  are  romanticistic.  Their  whole  lives 
deal  with  realities,  the  every-other-day  as  well  as  the 
every-day  realities.  But  the  lives  of  those  others  who 
make  all  life  costly  by  refusing  their  share  of  its  work 
dwell  in  a  web  of  threadbare  fictions  which  never  had 
any  color  of  truth  in  this  country.  They  are  trying  to 
imitate  poor  imitations,  to  copy  those  vulgar  copies  of 
the  European  ideal  which  form  the  society-page's  con 
tribution  to  the  history  of  our  contemporary  civiliza 
tion." 

We  were  so  far  moved  as  to  say,  "  We  think  we  see 
what  you  mean,"  and  our  friend  went  on. 

"  Speaking  of  civilization,  do  you  know  what  a  genial 
change  the  tea-room  is  working  in  our  morals  and  man 
ners  ?  There  are  many  interesting  phases  of  its  prog 
ress  among  us,  and  not  the  least  interesting  of  these  is 
its  being  so  largely  the  enterprise  of  ladies  who  must 
not  only  save  money,  but  must  earn  money,  in  order  to 
live,  not  cheaply,  but  at  all.  Their  fearlessness  in  go 
ing  to  work  has  often  the  charm  of  a  patrician  past, 
for  many  of  them  are  Southern  women  who  have  come 

112 


'MEANS    OF    LIVING    IN    NEW    YORK 

to  New  York  to  repair  their  broken  fortunes.  The 
tea-room  has  offered  itself  as  a  graceful  means  to  this 
end,  and  they  have  accepted  its  conditions,  which  are 
mainly  the  more  delicate  kinds  of  cookery,  with  those 
personal  and  racial  touches  in  which  Southern  women 
are  so  expert.  But  there  are  tea-rooms  managed  by 
Western  women,  if  I  may  judge  from  the  accents  in 
voluntarily  overheard  in  their  talk  at  the  telephone. 
The  tea  of  the  tea-room  means  lunch,  too,  and  in  some 
places  breakfast  and  dinner,  or  rather  supper,  on  much 
the  plan  of  the  several  Women's  Exchanges;  but  these 
are  mostly  of  New  England  inspiration  and  operation, 
and  their  cooking  has  a  Northern  quality.  They,  as 
well  as  the  tea-rooms,  leave  something  to  be  desired  in 
cheapness,  though  they  might  be  dearer;  in  some  you 
get  tea  for  fifteen  cents,  in  others  a  no  better  brew  for 
twenty-five.  But  they  are  all  charmingly  peaceful,  and 
when  at  the  noon  hour  they  overflow  with  conversation, 
still  there  is  a  prevailing  sense  of  quiet,  finely  qualified 
by  the  feminine  invention  and  influence.  Mere  men 
are  allowed  to  frequent  these  places,  not  only  under  the 
protection  of  women,  but  also  quite  unchaperoned,  and 
when  one  sees  them  gently  sipping  their  Souchong  or 
Oolong,  and  respectfully  munching  their  toasted  muf 
fins  or  their  chicken-pie,  one  remembers  with  tender 
gratitude  how  recently  they  would  have  stood  crooking 
their  elbows  at  deleterious  bars,  and  visiting  the  bowls 
of  cheese  and  shredded  fish  and  crackers  to  which  their 
drink  freed  them,  while  it  enslaved  them  to  the  witchery 
of  those  lurid  ladies  contributed  by  art  to  the  evil  at 
tractions  of  such  places :  you  see  nowhere  else  ladies 
depicted  with  so  little  on,  except  in  the  Paris  salon. 
The  New  York  tea-rooms  are  not  yet  nearly  so  frequent 
as  in  London,  but  I  think  they  are  on  the  average 

cosier,  and  on  the  whole  I  cannot  say  that  they  are 

113 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

dearer.  They  really  cheapen  the  midday  meal  to  many 
who  would  otherwise  make  it  at  hotels  and  restaurants, 
and,  so  far  as  they  contribute  to  the  spread  of  the  after 
noon-tea  habit,  they  actually  lessen  the  cost  of  living: 
many  guests  can  now  be  fobbed  off  with  tea  who  must 
once  have  been  asked  to  lunch." 

"  But,"  we  suggested,  "  isn't  that  cheapness  at  the 
cost  of  shabbiness,  which  no  one  can  really  afford  ?" 

"  "No,  I  don't  think  so.  Whatever  lightens  hos 
pitality  of  its  cumbrousness  makes  for  civilization, 
which  is  really  more  compatible  with  a  refined  fru 
gality  than  with  an  unbridled  luxury.  If  every  a-la- 
carte  restaurant,  in  the  hotels  and  out  of  them,  could 
be  replaced  by  tea-rooms,  and  for  the  elaborate  lunches 
and  dinners  of  private  life  the  informality  and  sim 
plicity  of  the  afternoon  tea  were  substituted,  we  should 
all  be  healthier,  wealthier,  and  wiser ;  and  I  should  not 
be  obliged  to  protract  this  contention  for  the  superior 
cheapness  of  ISTew  York." 

"  But,  wait !"  we  said.  "  There  is  something  just 
occurs  to  us.  If  you  proved  New  York  the  cheapest 
great  city  in  the  world,  wouldn't  it  tend  to  increase  our 
population  even  beyond  the  present  figure,  which  you 
once  found  so  deplorable  ?" 

"  No,  I  imagine  not.  Or,  rather,  it  would  add  to 
our  population  only  those  who  desire  to  save  instead 
of  those  who  desire  to  waste.  We  should  increase 
through  the  new-comers  in  virtuous  economy,  and  not 
as  now  in  spendthrift  vainglory.  In  the  end  the  effect 
would  be  the  same  for  civilization  as  if  we  shrank  to 
the  size  of  Boston." 

"Yrou  will  have  to  explain  a  little,  Howadji,"  we 
said,  "  if  you  expect  us  to  understand  your  very  inter 
esting  position." 

"  Why,    vou    know,"    he    answered,    with   easy    su- 

tX?    "  114 


MEANS    OF    LIVING    IN    NEW    YORK 

periority,  "  that  now  our  great  influx  is  of  opulent 
strangers  who  have  made  a  good  deal  of  money,  and 
of  destitute  strangers  willing  to  help  them  live  on  it. 
The  last  we  needn't  take  account  of;  they  are  common 
to  all  cities  in  all  ages ;  but  the  first  are  as  new  as  any 
phenomenon  can  be  in  a  world  of  such  tiresome  tautol 
ogies  as  ours.  They  come  up  from  our  industrial 
provinces,  eager  to  squander  their  wealth  in  the  com 
mercial  metropolis;  they  throw  down  their  purses  as 
the  heroes  of  old  threw  down  their  gantlets  for  a  gage 
of  battle,  and  they  challenge  the  local  champions  of 
extortion  to  take  them  up.  It  is  said  that  they  do  not 
want  a  seasonable  or  a  beautiful  thing;  they  want  a 
costly  thing.  If,  for  instance,  they  are  offered  a  house 
or  an  apartment  at  a  rental  of  ten  or  fifteen  thousand, 
they  will  not  have  it ;  they  require  a  rental  of  fifteen  or 
twenty  thousand,  so  that  it  may  be  known,  '  back  home,' 
that  they  are  spending  that  much  for  rent  in  New  York, 
and  the  provincial  imagination  taxed  to  proportion  the 
cost  of  their  living  otherwise  to  such  a  sum.  You  may 
say  that  it  is  rather  splendid,  but  you  cannot  deny  that 
it  is  also  stupid." 

"  Stupid,  no ;  but  barbaric,  yes,"  we  formulated  the 
case.  "  It  is  splendid,  as  barbaric  pearls  and  gold  are 
splendid." 

"  But  you  must  allow  that  nothing  could  be  more 
mischievous.  When  next  we  go  with  our  modest  in 
comes  against  these  landlords,  they  suppose  that  we  too 
want  rentals  of  fifteen  thousand,  whereas  we  would 
easily  be  satisfied  with  one  of  fifteen  hundred  or  a 
thousand.  The  poor  fellows'  fancy  is  crazed  by  those 
prodigals,  and  we  must  all  suffer  for  their  madness. 
The  extravagance  of  the  new-comers  does  not  affect  the 
price  of  provisions  so  much,  or  of  clothes;  the  whole 

population  demands  food  and  raiment  within  the  gen- 

115 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

eral  means,  however  much  it  must  exceed  its  means  in 
the  cost  of  shelter.  The  spendthrifts  cannot  set  the 
pace  for  such  expenditures,  no  matter  how  much  they 
lavish  on  their  backs  and — " 

"  Forbear !"  we  cried.  "  Turning  from  the  danger 
we  have  saved  you  from,  you  will  say,  we  suppose,  that 
New  York  would  be  the  cheapest  of  the  great  cities  if  it 
were  not  for  the  cost  of  shelter." 

"  Something  like  that,"  he  assented. 

"  But  as  we  understand,  that  difficulty  is  to  be  solved 
by  co-operative,  or  composite,  housing?" 

"  Something  like  that,"  he  said  again,  but  there  was 
a  note  of  misgiving  in  his  voice. 

"  What  is  the  '  out '  ?"  we  asked. 

"  There  is  no  '  out/  "  he  said,  with  a  deep,  evasive 
sigh. 


XII 

THE  QUALITY  OF  BOSTON  AND  THE  QUANTITY 
OF  NEW  YORK 

LATER  in  the  summer,  or  earlier  in  the  fall,  than 
when  we  saw  him  newly  returned  from  Europe,  that 
friend  whom  the  veteran  reader  will  recall  as  having 
so  brashly  offered  his  impressions  of  the  national  com 
plexion  and  temperament  looked  in  again  on  the  Easy 
Chair. 

"  Well,"  we  said,  "  do  you  wish  to  qualify,  to  hedge, 
to  retract?  People  usually  do  after  they  have  been  at 
home  as  long  as  you." 

"  But  I  do  not,"  he  said.  He  took  his  former 
seat,  but  now  laid  on  the  heap  of  rejected  MSS.,  not 
the  silken  cylinder  he  had  so  daintily  poised  there  be 
fore,  but  a  gray  fedora  that  fell  carelessly  over  in  lazy 
curves  and  hollows.  "  I  wish  to  modify  by  adding  the 
effect  of  further  observation  and  adjusting  it  to  my  first 
conclusions.  Since  I  saw  you  T  have  been  back  to  Bos 
ton  ;  in  fact,  I  have  just  come  from  there." 

We  murmured  some  banality  about  not  knowing  a 
place  where  one  could  better  come  from  than  Boston. 
But  he  brushed  it  by  without  notice. 

"  To  begin  with,  I  wish  to  add  that  I  was  quite  wrong 
in  finding  the  typical  Boston  face  now  prevalently 
Celtic." 

"  You  call  that  adding?"  we  satirized. 
117 


IMAGINAEY    INTERVIEWS 

He  ignored  the  poor  sneer. 

"  My  earlier  observation  was  correct  enough,  but  it 
was  a  result  of  that  custom  which  peoples  the  hills,  the 
shores,  and  the  sister  continent  in  summer  with  the 
]STew-Englanders  of  the  past,  and  leaves  their  capital  to 
those  New-Englanders  of  the  future  dominantly  repre 
sented  by  the  Irish.  At  the  time  of  my  second  visit 
the  exiles  had  returned,  and  there  were  the  faces  again 
that,  instead  of  simply  forbidding  me,  arraigned  me 
and  held  me  guilty  till  I  had  proved  myself  inno 
cent," 

"  Do  you  think,"  we  suggested,  "  that  you  would 
find  this  sort  of  indictment  in  them  if  you  had  a  better 
conscience  ?" 

"  Perhaps  not.  And  I  must  own  I  did  not  find  them 
so  accusing  when  I  could  study  them  in  their  contem 
plation  of  some  more  important  subject  than  myself. 
One  such  occasion  for  philosophizing  them  distinctly 
offered  itself  to  my  chance  witness  when  an  event  of  the 
last  seriousness  had  called  some  hundreds  of  them  to 
gether.  One  sees  strong  faces  elsewhere;  I  have  seen 
them  assembled  especially  in  England ;  but  I  have  never 
seen  such  faces  as  those  Boston  faces,  so  intense,  so 
full  of  a  manly  dignity,  a  subdued  yet  potent  per 
sonality,  a  consciousness  as  far  as  could  be  from  self- 
consciousness.  I  found  something  finely  visionary  in 
it  all,  as  if  I  were  looking  on  a  piece  of  multiple 
portraiture  such  as  you  see  in  those  Dutch  paintings  of 
companies  at  Amsterdam,  for  instance.  It  expressed 
purity  of  race,  continuity  of  tradition,  fidelity  to  ideals 
such  as  no  other  group  of  faces  would  now  express. 
You  might  have  had  the  like  at  Rome,  at  Athens,  at 
Florence,  at  Amsterdam,  in  their  prime,  possibly  in 
the  England  of  the  resurgent  parliament,  though  there 
it  would  have  been  mixed  with  a  fanaticism  absent  in 

118 


THE    QUALITY    OF    BOSTON 

Boston.  You  felt  that  those  men  no  doubt  had  their 
limitations,  but  their  limitations  were  lateral,  not 
vertical." 

"  Then  why/'  wo  asked,  not  very  relevantly,  "  don't 
you  go  and  live  in  Boston  ?" 

"  It  wouldn't  make  me  such  a  Bostonian  if  I  did ; 
I  should  want  a  half-dozen  generations  behind  me  for 
that.  Besides,  I  feel  my  shortcomings  less  in  Kew 
York." 

'  You  are  difficult.  Why  not  fling  yourself  into  the 
tide  of  joy  here,  instead  of  shivering  on  the  brink  in 
the  blast  of  that  east  wind  which  you  do  not  even  find 
regenerative?  Why  not  forget  our  inferiority,  since 
you  cannot  forgive  it  ?  Or  do  you  think  that  by  being 
continually  reminded  of  it  we  can  become  as  those  Bos- 
tonians  are  ?  Can  we  reduce  ourselves,  by  repenting, 
from  four  millions  to  less  than  one,  and  by  narrowing 
our  phylacteries  achieve  the  unlimited  Bostonian  ver- 
ticality,  and  go  as  deup  and  as  high  ?" 

"  No,"  our  friend  said.  "  Good  as  they  are,  we  can 
only  be  better  by  being  different.  We  have  our  own 
message  to  the  future,  which  we  must  deliver  as  soon 
as  we  understand  it." 

"  Is  it  in  Esperanto  ?" 

"  It  is  at  least  polyglot.  But  you  are  taking  me  too 
seriously.  I  wished  merely  to  qualify  my  midsummer 
impressions  of  a  prevailing  Celtic  Boston  by  my  au 
tumnal  impressions  of  a  persisting  Puritanic  Boston. 
But  it  is  wonderful  how  that  strongly  persistent  past 
still  characterizes  the  present  in  every  development. 
Even  those  Irish  faces  which  I  wouldn't  have  ventured 
a  joke  with  were  no  doubt  sobered  by  it ;  and  when  the 
Italians  shall  come  forward  to  replace  them  it  will  be 
with  no  laughing  Pulcinello  masks,  but  visages  as  se 
vere  as  those  that  first  challenged  the  wilderness  of 

119 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

Massachusetts  Bay,  and  made  the  Three  Hills  tremble 
to  their  foundations." 

"  It  seems  to  us  that  you  are  yielding  to  rhetoric  a 
little,  aren't  you  ?"  we  suggested. 

"  Perhaps  I  am.  But  you  see  what  I  mean.  And 
I  should  like  to  explain  further  that  I  believe  the  Cel 
tic  present  and  the  Pelasgic  future  will  rule  Boston 
in  their  turn  as  the  Puritanic  past  learned  so  admirably 
to  rule  it:  by  the  mild  might  of  irony,  by  the  benefi 
cent  power  which  in  the  man  who  sees  the  joke  of 
himself  enables  him  to  enter  brotherly  into  the  great 
human  joke,  and  be  friends  with  every  good  and  kind 
thing." 

"  Could  you  be  a  little  more  explicit  ?" 

"  I  would  rather  not  for  the  moment.  But  I  should 
like  to  make  you  observe  that  the  Boston  to  be  has  more 
to  hope  and  less  to  fear  from  the  newer  Americans  than 
this  metropolis  where  these  are  so  much  more  hetero 
geneous.  Here  salvation  must  be  of  the  Jews  among 
the  swarming  natives  of  the  East  Side;  but  in  Boston 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  artistic  instincts  of  the 
Celtic  and  Pelasgic  successors  of  the  Puritans  should 
not  unite  in  that  effect  of  beauty  which  is  an  effect  of 
truth,  and  keep  Boston  the  first  of  our  cities  in  good 
looks  as  well  as  good  works.  With  us  here  in  New 
York  a  civic  job  has  the  chance  of  turning  out  a  city 
joy,  but  it  is  a  fighting  chance.  In  Boston  there  is 
little  doubt  of  such  a  job  turning  out  a  joy.  The  munic 
ipality  of  Boston  has  had  almost  the  felicity  of  Gold 
smith — it  has  touched  nothing  which  it  has  not  adorned. 
Wherever  its  hand  has  been  laid  upon  Nature,  Nature 
has  purred  in  responsive  beauty.  They  used  to  talk 
about  the  made  land  in  Boston,  but  half  Boston  is  the 
work  of  man,  and  it  shows  what  the  universe  might 
have  been  if  the  Bostonians  had  been  taken  into  the 

120 


THE    QUALITY     OF    BOSTON 

confidence  of  the  Creator  at  the  beginning.  The  Back 
Bay  was  only  the  suggestion  of  what  has  since  been 
done ;  and  I  never  go  to  Boston  without  some  new  cause 
for  wonder.  There  is  no  other  such  charming  union 
of  pleasaunce  and  residence  as  the  Fenways;  the  sys 
tem  of  parks  is  a  garden  of  delight ;  and  now  the  State 
has  taken  up  the  work,  no  doubt  at  the  city's  suggestion, 
and,  turning  from  the  land  to  the  water,  has  laid  a  re 
straining  touch  on  the  tides  of  the  sea,  which,  ever  since 
the  moon  entered  on  their  management,  have  flowed 
and  ebbed  through  the  channel  of  the  Charles.  The 
State  has  dammed  the  river ;  the  brine  of  the  ocean  no 
longer  enters  it,  but  it  feeds  itself  full  of  sweet  water 
from  the  springs  in  the  deep  bosom  of  the  country. 
The  Beacon  Street  houses  back  upon  a  steadfast  expanse 
as  fresh  as  the  constant  floods  of  the  Great  Lakes." 

"  And  we  dare  say  that  it  looks  as  large  as  Lake 
Superior  to  Boston  eyes.  What  do  they  call  their  dam  ? 
The  Charlesea  ?" 

"  You  may  be  sure  they  will  call  it  something  taste 
ful  and  fit,"  our  friend  responded,  in  rejection  of  our 
feeble  mockery.  "  Charlesea  would  not  be  bad.  But 
what  I  wish  to  make  you  observe  is  that  all  which  has 
yet  been  done  for  beauty  in  Boston  has  been  done 
from  the  unexhausted  instinct  of  it  in  the  cold  heart 
of  Puritanism,  where  it  i  burns  f rore  and  does  the  ef 
fect  of  fire.'  As  yet  the  Celtic  and  Pelasgic  agencies 
have  had  no  part  in  advancing  the  city.  The  first  have 
been  content  with  voting  themselves  into  office,  and  the 
last  with  owning  their  masters  out-of-doors;  for  the 
Irish  are  the  lords,  and  the  Italians  are  the  landlords. 
But  when  these  two  gifted  races,  with  their  divinely 
implanted  sense  of  art,  shall  join  forces  with  the  deeply 
conscienced  taste  of  the  Puritans,  what  mayn't  we  ex 
pect  Boston  to  be  ?" 

9  121 


IHAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

"  And  what  mayn't  we  expect  New  York  to  be  on 
the  same  terms,  or,  say,  when  the  Celtic  and  Pelasgic 
and  Hebraic  and  Slavic  elements  join  with  the  old 
Batavians,  in  whom  the  love  of  the  artistic  is  by  right 
also  native  ?  .Come !  Why  shouldn't  we  have  a  larger 
Boston  here  V 

"  Because  we  are  too  large/7  our  friend  retorted,  un 
dauntedly.  "  When  graft  subtly  crept  among  the  no 
bler  motives  which  created  the  park  system  of  Boston 
the  city  could  turn  for  help  to  the  State  and  get  it; 
but  could  our  city  get  help  from  our  State  ?  Our  city 
is  too  big  to  profit  by  that  help;  our  State  too  small 
to  render  it.  The  commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  is 
creating  a  new  Garden  of  Eden  on  the  banks  of  the 
Charlesea;  but  what  is  the  State  of  New  York  doing 
to  emparadise  the  shores  of  the  Hudson  ?" 

"  All  the  better  for  us,  perhaps,"  we  stubbornly,  but 
not  very  sincerely,  contended,  "  if  we  have  to  do  our 
good  works  ourselves." 

"  Yes,  if  we  do  them.  But  shall  they  remain  un 
done  if  we  don't  do  them?  The  city  of  New  York  is 
so  great  that  it  swings  the  State  of  New  York.  The 
virtues  that  are  in  each  do  not  complement  one  another, 
as  the  virtues  of  Boston  and  Massachusetts  do.  Where 
shall  you  find,  in  our  house  or  in  our  grounds,  the  city 
and  the  State  joining  to  an  effect  of  beauty?  When 
you  come  to  New  York,  what  you  see  of  grandeur  is  the 
work  of  commercialism;  what  you  see  of  grandeur  in 
Boston  is  the  work  of  civic  patriotism.  We  hire  the 
arts  to  build  and  decorate  the  homes  of  business;  the 
Bostonians  inspire  them  to  devote  beauty  and  dignity 
to  the  public  pleasure  and  use.  No,"  our  friend  con 
cluded  with  irritating  triumph,  "we  are  too  vast,  too 
many,  for  the  finest  work  of  the  civic  spirit.  Athens 
could  be  beautiful-— Florence,  Venice,  Genoa  were — but 

122 


THE    QUALITY    OF    BOSTON 

Rome,  which  hired  or  enslaved  genius  to  create  beauti 
ful  palaces,  temples,  columns,  statues,  could  only  be 
immense.  She  could  only  huddle  the  lines  of  Greek 
loveliness  into  a  hideous  agglomeration,  and  lose  their 
effect  as  utterly  as  if  one  should  multiply  Greek  noses 
and  Greek  chins,  Greek  lips  and  Greek  eyes,  Greek 
brows  and  Greek  heads  of  violet  hair,  in  one  monstrous 
visage.  No,"  he  exulted,  in  this  mortifying  image 
of  our  future  ugliness,  "  when  a  city  passes  a  certain 
limit  of  space  and  population,  she  adorns  herself  in 
vain.  London,  the  most  lovable  of  the  mighty  mothers 
of  men,  has  not  the  charm  of  Paris,  which,  if  one  can 
not  quite  speak  of  her  virgin  allure,  has  yet  a  youth 
and  grace  which  lend  themselves  to  the  fondness  of  the 
arts.  Boston  is  fast  becoming  of  the  size  of  Paris,  but 
if  I  have  not  misread  her  future  she  will  be  careful 
not  to  pass  it,  and  become  as  New  York  is." 

We  were  so  alarmed  by  this  reasoning  that  we  asked 
in  considerable  dismay:  "  But  what  shall  we  do?  We 
could  not  help  growing:  perhaps  we  wished  to  over 
grow;  but  is  there  no  such  thing  as  ungrowing?  When 
the  fair,  when  the  sex  which  we  instinctively  attribute 
to  cities,  finds  itself  too  large  in  its  actuality  for  a 
Directoire  ideal,  there  are  means,  there  are  methods,  of 
reduction.  Is  there  no  remedy,  then,  for  municipal 
excess  of  size  ?  Is  there  no  harmless  potion  or  powder 
by  which  a  city  may  lose  a  thousand  inhabitants  a  day, 
as  the  superabounding  fair  loses  a  pound  of  beauty? 
Is  there  nothing  for  New  York  analogous  to  rolling  on 
the  floor,  to  the  straight-front  corset,  to  the  sugarless, 
starchless  diet?  Come,  you  must  not  deny  us  all  hope! 
ITow  did  Boston  manage  to  remain  so  small  ?  What 
elixirs,  what  exercises,  did  she  take  or  use?  Surely 
she  did  not  do  it  all  by  reading  and  thinking!"  Our 
friend  continued  somewhat  inexorably  silent,  and  we 

123 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

pursued :  "  Do  you  think  that  by  laying  waste  our 
Long  Island  suburbs,  by  burning  the  whole  affiliated 
Jersey  shore,  by  strangling  the  Bronx,  as  it  were,  in 
its  cradle,  and  by  confining  ourselves  rigidly  to  our 
native  isle  of  Manhattan,  we  could  do  something  to 
regain  our  lost  opportunity  ?  We  should  then  have  the 
outline  of  a  fish;  true,  a  nondescript  fish;  but  the  fish 
was  one  of  the  Greek  ideals  of  the  female  form."  He 
was  silent  still,  and  we  gathered  courage  to  press  on. 
"  As  it  is,  we  are  not  altogether  hideous.  We  doubt 
whether  there  are  not  more  beautiful  buildings  in  New 
York  now  than  there  are  in  Boston ;  and  as  for  statues, 
where  are  the  like  there  of  our  Macmonnies  Hale,  of 
our  Saint-Gaudens  Farragut  and  Sherman,  of  our  Ward 
Indian  Hunter  ?" 

"  The  Shaw  monument  blots  them  all  out,"  our 
friend  relentlessly  answered.  "  But  these  are  merely 
details.  Our  civic  good  things  are  accidental.  Bos 
ton's  are  intentional.  That  is  the  great,  the  vital  dif 
ference." 

It  did  not  occur  to  us  that  he  was  wrong,  he  had  so 
crushed  us  under  foot.  But,  with  the  trodden  worm's 
endeavor  to  turn,  we  made  a  last  appeal.  "  And  with 
the  sky-scraper  itself  we  still  expect  to  do  something, 
something  stupendously  beautiful.  Say  that  we  have 
lost  our  sky-line !  What  shall  we  not  have  of  grandeur, 
of  titanic  loveliness,  when  we  have  got  a  sky-scraper- 
line?" 

It  seemed  to  us  that  here  was  a  point  which  he  could 
not  meet;  and,  in  fact,  he  could  only  say,  whether  in 
irony  or  not,  "  I  would  rather  not  think." 

We  were  silent,  and,  upon  the  reflection  to  which  our 
silence  invited  us,  we  found  that  we  would  rather  not 
ourselves  think  of  the  image  we  had  invoked.  We  pre 
ferred  to  take  up  the  question  at  another  point. 

124 


THE    QUALITY    OF    BOSTON 

"  Well,"  we  said,  "  in  your  impressions  of  Bostonian 
greatness  we  suppose  that  you  received  the  effect  of 
her  continued  supremacy  in  authors  as  well  as  author 
ship,  in  artists  as  well  as  art?  You  did  not  meet 
Emerson  or  Longfellow  or  Lowell  or  Prescott  or 
Holmes  or  Hawthorne  or  Whittier  about  her  streets, 
but  surely  you  met  their  peers,  alive  and  in  the  flesh  ?" 
"  No,"  our  friend  admitted,  "  not  at  every  corner. 
But  what  I  did  meet  was  the  effect  of  those  high  souls 
having  abode  there  while  on  the  earth.  The  great 
Boston  authors  are  dead,  and  the  great  Boston  artists 
are  worse — they  have  come  to  New  York;  they  have 
not  even  waited  to  die.  But  whether  they  have  died, 
or  whether  they  have  come  to  New  York,  they  have 
left  their  inspiration  in  Boston.  In  one  sense  the 
place  that  has  known  them  shall  know  them  no  more 
forever ;  but  in  another  sense  it  has  never  ceased  to 
know  them.  I  can't  say  how  it  is,  exactly,  but  though 
you  don't  see  them  in  Boston,  you  feel  them.  But 
here  in  New  York — our  dear,  immense,  slattern  mother 
—who  feels  anything  of  the  character  of  her  great  chil 
dren?  Who  remembers  in  these  streets  Bryant  or  Poe 
or  Hallock  or  Curtis  or  Stoddard  or  Stedman,  or  the 
other  poets  who  once  dwelt  in  them  ?  Who  remembers 
even  such  great  editors  as  Greeley  or  James  Gordon 
Bennett  or  Godkin  or  Dana  ?  What  malignant  magic, 
what  black  art,  is  it  that  reduces  us  all  to  one  level  of 
forgottenness  when  we  are  gone,  and  even  before  we 
are  gone  ?  Have  those  high  souls  left  their  inspiration 
here,  for  common  men  to  breathe  the  breath  of  finer 
and  nobler  life  from  ?  I  won't  abuse  the  millionaires 
who  are  now  our  only  great  figures ;  even  the  million 
aires  are  gone  when  they  go.  They  die,  and  they  leave 
no  sign,  quite  as  if  they  were  so  many  painters  and 
poets.  You  can  recall  some  of  their  names,  but  not 

125 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

easily.  No,  if  New  York  has  any  hold  upon  the  pres 
ent  from  the  past,  it  isn't  in  the  mystical  persistence  of 
such  spirits  among  us." 

"  Well,"  we  retorted,  hardily,  "  we  have  no  need  of 
them.  It  is  the  high  souls  of  the  future  which  in 
fluence  us." 

Our  friend  looked  at  us  as  if  he  thought  there  might 
be  something  in  what  we  said.  "  Will  you  explain  2" 
he  asked. 

"  Some  other  time,"  we  consented. 


XIII 

THE  WHIRL   OF   LIFE   IN  OUR  FIRST  CIRCLES 

ONE  of  those  recurrent  selves  who  frequent  the 
habitat  of  the  Easy  Chair,  with  every  effect  of  ex 
terior  identities,  looked  in  and  said,  before  he  sat  down, 
and  much  before  he  was  asked  to  sit  down,  "  Are  you 
one  of  those  critics  of  smart  or  swell  society  (or  what 
ever  it's  called  now)  who  despise  it  because  they  can't 
get  into  it,  or  one  of  those  censors  who  won't  go  into 
it  because  they  despise  it  ?" 

"  Your  question,"  we  replied,  "  seems  to  be  rather 
offensive,  but  we  don't  know  that  it's  voluntarily  so, 
and  it's  certainly  interesting.  On  your  part,  will  you 
say  what  has  prompted  you,  just  at  the  moment,  to  ac 
cost  us  with  this  inquiry?"  Before  he  could  answer, 
we  hastened  to  add :  "  By-the-way,  what  a  fine,  old- 
fashioned,  gentlemanly  word  accost  is!  People  used 
to  accost  one  another  a  great  deal  in  polite  literature. 
*  Seeing  her  embarrassment  from  his  abrupt  and  vigor 
ous  stare,  he  thus  accosted  her.'  Or,  i  Embarrassed 
by  his  fixed  and  penetrating  regard,  she  timidly  ac 
costed  him.'  It  seems  to  us  that  we  remember  a  great 
many  passages  like  these.  Why  has  the  word  gone  out  ? 
It  was  admirably  fitted  for  such  junctures,  and  it  was 
so  polished  by  use  that  it  slipped  from  the  pen  with 
out  any  effort  of  the  brain,  and— 

"  I  have  no  time  for  idle  discussions  of  a  mere  lit- 
127 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

erary  nature/'  our  other  self  returned.  "  I  am  very 
full  of  the  subject  which  I  have  sprung  upon  you,  and 
which  I  see  you  are  trying  to  shirk." 

"  'Not  at  all/7  we  smilingly  retorted.  "  We  will  an 
swer  you  according  to  your  folly  without  the  least  re 
luctance.  We  are  not  in  smart  or  swell  society  because 
we  cannot  get  in;  but  at  the  same  time  we  would  not 
get  in  if  we  could,  because  we  despise  it  too  much. 
We  wonder/'  we  continued,  speciilatively,  "why  we 
always  suspect  the  society  satirist  of  suffering  from  a 
social  snub  ?  It  doesn't  in  the  least  follow.  Was  Pope, 
when  he  invited  his  S'in'  John  to 

'  leave  all  meaner  things 
To  low  ambition  and  the  pride  of  kings' 

goaded  to  magnanimity  by  a  slight  from  royalty? 
Was  Mr.  Benson  when  he  came  over  here  from  Lon 
don  excluded  from  the  shining  first  circles  of  New 
York  and  Newport,  which  are  apparently  reflected  with 
such  brilliant  fidelity  in  The  Relentless  City,  and  was 
he  wreaking  an  unworthy  resentment  in  portraying  our 
richly  moneyed,  blue-blooded  society  to  the  life  ?  How 
are  manners  ever  to  be  corrected  with  a  smile  if  the 
smile  is  always  suspected  of  being  an  agonized  grin, 
the  contortion  of  the  features  by  the  throes  of  a  morti 
fied  spirit?  Was  George  William  Curtis  in  his  amus 
ing  but  unsparing  Poliphar  Papers — " 

"  Ah,  now  you  are  shouting !"  our  other  self  ex 
claimed. 

"  Your  slang  is  rather  antiquated,"  we  returned, 
with  grave  severity.  "  But  just  what  do  you  mean 
by  it  in  this  instance  ?" 

"  I  mean  that  manners  are  never  corrected  with  a 
smile,  whether  of  compassion  or  of  derision.  The  man- 

128 


THE    WHIRL    OF    LIFE 

ners  that  are  bad,  that  are  silly,  that  are  vulgar,  that 
are  vicious,  go  on  unchastened  from  generation  to  gen 
eration.  Even  the  good  manners  don't  seem  to  decay: 
simplicity,  sincerity,  kindness,  don't  really  go  out,  any 
more  than  the  other  things,  and  fortunately  the  other 
things  are  confined  only  to  a  small  group  in  every 
civilization,  to  the  black  sheep  of  the  great,  whity-brown 
or  golden-fleeced  human  family." 

"  What  has  all  this  vague  optimism  to  do  with  the 
Potiphar  Papers  and  smart  society  and  George  Will 
iam  Curtis  ?"  we  brought  the  intruder  sharply  to  book. 

"  A  great  deal,  especially  the  part  relating  to  the 
continuity  of  bad  manners.  I've  just  been  reading  an 
extremely  clever  little  book  by  a  new  writer,  called 
New  York  Society  on  Parade,  which  so  far  as  its  basal 
facts  are  concerned  might  have  been  written  by  the 
writer  of  '  Our  Best  Society '  and  the  other  Potiphar 
Papers.  The  temperament  varies  from  book  to  book; 
Mr.  Ralph  Pulitzer  has  a  neater  and  lighter  touch  than 
George  William  Curtis;  his  book  is  more  compact, 
more  directly  and  distinctly  a  study,  and  it  is  less  al 
loyed  with  the  hopes  of  society  reform  which  could  be 
more  reasonably  indulged  fifty-six  years  ago.  Do  you 
remember  when  i  Our  Best  Society  '  came  out  in  the  eld 
est  Putnam's  Magazine,  that  phoenix  of  monthlies  which 
has  since  twice  risen  from  its  ashes?  Don't  pretend 
that  our  common  memory  doesn't  run  back  to  the  year 
1853 !  We  have  so  many  things  in  common  that  I 
can't  let  you  disgrace  the  firm  by  any  such  vain  as 
sumption  of  extreme  youth !" 

"  WThy  should  we  assume  it  ?  The  Easy  Chair  had 
then  been  three  years  firmly  on  its  legs,  or  its  rockers, 
and  the,  succession  of  great  spirits,  now  disembodied, 
whom  its  ease  invited,  were  all  more  or  less  in  mature 
flesh.  We  remember  that  paper  on  '  Our  Best  Society ' 

120 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

vividly,  and  we  recall  the  shock  that  its  facts  concern 
ing  the  Upper  Ten  Thousand  of  Xew  York  imparted  to 
the  innocent,  or  at  least  the  virtuous,  Lower  Twenty 
Millions  inhabiting  the  rest  of  the  United  States.  Do 
you  mean  to  say  that  the  Four  Hundred  of  this  day 
are  no  better  than  the  Ten  Thousand  of  that?  Has 
nothing  been  gained  for  quality  by  that  prodigious  re 
duction  in  quantity?" 

"  On  the  contrary,  the  folly,  the  vanity,  the  mean 
ness,  the  heartlessness,  the  vulgarity,  have  only  been 
condensed  and  concentrated,  if  we  are  to  believe  Mr. 
Pulitzer;  and  I  don't  see  why  we  should  doubt  him. 
Did  you  say  you  hadn't  seen  his  very  shapely  little 
study?  It  takes,  with  all  the  unpitying  sincerity  of  a 
kodak,  the  likeness  of  our  best  society  in  its  three  most 
characteristic  aspects;  full-face  at  dinner,  three-quar 
ters-face  at  the  opera,  and  profile  at  a  ball,  where  proud 
beauty  hides  its  face  on  the  shoulder  of  haughty  com 
mercial  or  financial  youth,  and  moneyed  age  dips  its 
nose  in  whatever  symbolizes  the  Gascon  wine  in  the 
paternal  library.  Mr.  Pulitzer  makes  no  attempt  at 
dramatizing  his  persons.  There  is  no  ambitious  Mrs. 
Potiphar  with  a  longing  for  fashionable  New  York 
worlds  to  conquer,  yet  with  a  secret  heartache  for  the 
love  of  her  country  girlhood;  no  good,  kind,  sordid 
Potiphar  bewildered  and  bedevilled  by  the  surround 
ings  she  creates  for  him;  no  soft  Rev.  Cream  Cheese, 
tenderly  respectful  of  Mammon  while  ritually  serving 
God;  no  factitious  Ottoman  of  a  Kurz  Pasha,  laugh 
ingly  yet  sadly  observant  of  us  playing  at  the  forms 
of  European  society.  Those  devices  of  the  satirist  be 
longed  to  the  sentimentalist  mood  of  the  Thackerayan 
epoch.  But  it  is  astonishing  how  exactly  history  re 
peats  itself  in  the  facts  of  the  ball  in  1910  from  the 
ball  of  1852.  The  motives,  the  personnel,  almost  the 

130 


THE    W1I1KL    OF    LIFE 

materiel,  the  incidents,  are  the  same.  I  should  think  it 
would  amuse  Mr.  Pulitzer,  imitating  nature  from  his 
actual  observation,  to  find  how  essentially  his  study  is 
the  same  with  that  of  Curtis  imitating  nature  fifty- 
seven  years  ago.  There  is  more  of  nature  in  hulk,  not 
in  variety,  to  be  imitated  now,  but  as  Mr.  Pulitzer 
studies  it  in  the  glass  of  fashion,  her  mean,  foolish, 
selfish  face  is  the  same.  He  would  find  in  the  sketches 
of  the  Mid- Victorian  satirist  all  sorts  of  tender  relent- 
ings  and  generous  hopes  concerning  the  '  gay '  New 
York  of  that  time  which  the  Early  Edwardian  satirist 
cannot  indulge  concerning  the  gay  New  York  of  this 
time.  It  seems  as  if  we  had  really  gone  from  bad  to 
worse,  not  qualitatively — we  couldn't — but  quantita 
tively.  There  is  more  money,  there  are  more  men, 
more  women,  but  otherwise  our  proud  world  is  the 
proud  world  of  1853." 

"  You  keep  saying  the  same  thing  with  '  damnable 
iterance,'  "  we  remarked.  "  Don't  you  suppose  that 
outside  of  New  York  there  is  now  a  vast  society,  as 
there  was  then,  which  enjoys  itself  sweetly,  kindly, 
harmlessly  ?  Is  there  no  gentle  Chicago  or  kind  St. 
Louis,  no  pastoral  Pittsburg,  no  sequestered  Cincin 
nati,  no  bucolic  Boston,  no  friendly  Philadelphia, 
where  '  the  heart  that  is  humble  may  look  for '  dis 
interested  pleasure  in  the  high-society  functions  of  the 
day  or  night  ?  Does  New  York  set  the  pace  for  all 
these  places,  and  are  dinners  given  there  as  here,  not 
for  the  delight  of  the  guests,  but  as  the  dire  duty  of 
the  hostesses  ?  Do  the  inhabitants  of  those  simple  so 
journs  go  to  the  opera  to  be  seen  and  not  to  hear  ?  Do 
they  follow  on  to  balls  before  the  piece  is  done  only  to 
bear  the  fardels  of  ignominy  heaped  upon  them  by  the 
germari's  leaders,  or  to  see  their  elders  and  fatters  get 
ting  all  the  beautiful  and  costlv  favors  while  their  own 

131 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

young  and  gracile  loveliness  is  passed  slighted  by  be 
cause  they  give  no  balls  where  those  cruel  captains  can 
hope  to  shine  in  the  van  ?  It  seems  to  us  that  in  our 
own  far  prime — now  well-nigh  lost  in  the  mists  of  an 
tiquity — life  was  ordered  kindlier;  that  dinners  and 
opera-parties  and  dances  were  given 

'To  bless  and  never  to  ban/" 

"  Very  likely,  on  the  low  society  level  on  which  our 
joint  life  moved,"  our  other  self  replied,  with  his  un 
sparing  candor.  "  You  know  we  were  a  country  vil 
lage,  city-of-the-second-class  personality.  Even  in  the 
distant  epoch  painted  in  the  Potiphar  Papers  the  mo 
tives  of  New  York  society  were  the  same  as  now.  It 
was  not  the  place  where  birth  and  rank  and  fame  re 
laxed  or  sported,  as  in  Europe,  or  where  ardent  in 
nocence  played  and  feasted  as  in  the  incorrupt  towns 
of  our  interior.  If  Curtis  once  represented  it  rightly, 
it  was  the  same  ridiculous,  hard-worked,  greedy,  costly, 
stupid  thing  which  Mr.  Pulitzer  again  represents  it." 

"And  yet,"  we  mused  aloud,  "  this  is  the  sort  of 
thing  which  the  '  unthinking  multitude '  who  criticise, 
or  at  least  review,  books  are  always  lamenting  that  our 
fiction  doesn't  deal  with.  Why,  in  its  emptiness  and 
heaviness,  its  smartness  and  dulness,  it  would  be  the 
death  of  our  poor  fiction!" 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  our  counterpart  responded. 
"  If  our  fiction  took  it  on  the  human  ground,  and  as 
certained  its  inner  pathos,  its  real  lament ableness,  it 
might  do  a  very  good  thing  with  those  clubmen  and 
society  girls  and  grandes  dames.  But  that  remains  to 
be  seen.  In  the  mean  time  it  is  very  much  to  have 
such  a  study  of  society  as  Mr.  Pulitzer  has  given  us. 
Eor  the  most  part  it  is  '  satire  with  no  pity  in  it/  but 

132 


THE    WHIRL    OF    LIFE 

there's  here  and  there  a  touch  of  compassion,  which 
moves  the  more  because  of  its  rarity.  When  the  au 
thor  notes  that  here  and  there  a  pretty  dear  finds  her 
self  left  with  no  one  to  take  her  out  to  supper  at  the 
ball,  his  few  words  wring  the  heart.  '  These  poor  vic 
tims  of  their  sex  cannot,  like  the  men,  form  tables  of 
their  own.  All  that  each  can  do  is  to  disappear  as 
swiftly  and  as  secretly  as  possible,  hurrying  home 
in  humiliation  for  the  present  and  despair  for  the 
future.'  " 

"  Do  such  cruel  things  really  happen  in  our  best 
society?"  we  palpitated,  in  an  anguish  of  sympathy. 

"  Such  things  and  worse,"  our  other  self  responded, 
"  as  when  in  the  german  the  fair  debutante  sees  the 
leader  advancing  toward  her  with  a  splendid  and  costly 
favor,  only  to  have  him  veer  abruptly  off  to  bestow  it 
on  some  fat  elderling  who  is  going  to  give  the  next 
ball.  But  Mr.  Pulitzer,  though  he  has  these  spare  in 
timations  of  pity,  has  none  of  the  sentiment  which 
there  is  rather  a  swash  of  in  the  Potipliar  Papers. 
It's  the  difference  between  the  Mid-Victorian  and  the 
Early  Edwardian  point  of  view.  Both  satirists  are 
disillusioned,  but  in  the  page  of  Curtis  there  is 

1  The  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead ' 

and  the  soft  suffusion  of  hope  for  better  things,  while 
in  the  page  of  Mr.  Pulitzer  there  is  no  such  quali 
fication  of  the  disillusion.  Both  are  enamoured  of  the 
beauty  of  those  daughters  of  Mammon,  and  of  the 
distinction  of  our  iron-clad  youth,  the  athletic,  well- 
groomed,  well-tailored  worldlings  who  hurry  up-town 
from  their  banks  and  brokers'  offices  and  lawyers'  of 
fices  to  the  dinners  and  opera -boxes  and  dances  of 
fashion.  '  The  girls  and  women  are  of  a  higher  aver- 

133 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

age  of  beauty  than  any  European  ball-room  could  pro 
duce.  The  inen,  too,  are  generally  well  built,  tall,  and 
handsome,  easily  distinguishable  from  the  waiters/  Mr. 
Pulitzer  assures  us." 

"  Well,  oughtn't  that  to  console  ?"  we  defied  our  other 
self.  "  Come !  It's  a  great  thing  to  be  easily  distin 
guishable  from  the  waiters,  when  the  waiters  are  so 
often  disappointed  '  remittance  men '  of  good  English 
family,  or  the  scions  of  Continental  nobility.  We 
mustn't  ask  everything." 

"  No,  and  apparently  the  feeding  is  less  gross  than 
it  was  in  Curtis's  less  sophisticated  time.  Many  of  the 
men  seem  still  to  smoke  and  booze  throughout  the  night 
with  the  host  in  his  *  library,'  but  the  dancing  youth 
don't  get  drunk  as  some  of  them  did  at  Mrs.  Potiphar's 
supper,  and  people  don't  throw  things  from  their  plates 
under  the  table." 

"  Well,  why  do  you  say,  then,  that  there  is  no  change 
for  the  better  in  our  best  society,  that  there  is  no  hope 
for  it?" 

"  Did  I  say  that  ?  If  I  did,  I  will  stick  to  it.  We 
must  let  our  best  society  be  as  it  now  imagines  itself. 
I  don't  suppose  that  in  all  that  gang  of  beautiful, 
splendid,  wasteful,  expensively  surfeited  people  there 
are  more  than  two  or  three  young  men  of  intellectual 
prowess  or  spiritual  distinction,  though  there  must  be 
some  clever  and  brilliant  toadies  of  the  artist  variety. 
In  fact,  Mr.  Pulitzer  says  as  much  outright;  and  it 
is  the  hard  lot  of  some  of  the  arts  to  have  to  tout  for 
custom  among  the  vulgar  ranks  of  our  best  society." 

"  Very  well,  then,"  we  said,  with  considerable  reso 
lution,  "  we  must  change  the  popular  ideal  of  the  best 
society.  We  must  have  a  four  hundred  made  up  of  the 
most  brilliant  artists,  authors,  doctors,  professors,  sci 
entists,  musicians,  actors,  and  ministers,  with  their 

134 


THE    WHiKL    OF    LIFE 

wives,  daughters,  and  sisters,  who  will  walk  to  one 
another's  dinners,  or  at  worst  go  by  trolley,  and  oc 
cupy  the  cheaper  seats  at  the  opera,  and  dance  in 
small  and  early  assemblages,  and  live  in  seven-rooin- 
with-bath  flats.  Money  must  not  count  at  all  in  the 
choice  of  these  elect  and  beautiful  natures.  The  ques 
tion  is,  how  shall  wo  get  the  dense,  unenlightened 
masses  to  regard  them  as  the  best  society;  how  teach 
the  reporters  to  run  after  them,  and  the  press  to  chron 
icle  their  entertainments,  engagements,  marriages,  di 
vorces,  voyages  to  and  from  Europe,  and  the  other  facts 
which  now  so  dazzle  the  common  fancy  when  it  finds 
them  recorded  in  the  society  intelligence  of  the  news 
papers  ?" 

'  Yes,  as  General  Sherman  said  when  he  had  once 
advocated  the  restriction  of  the  suffrage  and  had  been 
asked  how  he  was  going  to  get  the  consent  of  the  ma 
jority  whose  votes  he  meant  to  take  away — '  yes,  that  is 
the  devil  of  it.'  " 

We  were  silent  for  a  time,  and  then  we  suggest  ad, 
"  Don't  you  think  that  a  beginning  could  be  made  by 
those  real  elite  we  have  decided  on  refusing  to  let  asso 
ciate  with  what  now  calls  itself  our  best  society  ?" 

"But  hasn't  our  soi-disant  best  society  already 
made  that  beginning  for  its  betters  by  excluding 
them  ?"  our  other  self  responded. 

e  There  is  something  in  what  you  say,"  we  reluc 
tantly  assented,  "  but  by  no  means  everything.  The 
beginning  you  speak  of  has  been  made  at  the  wrong 
end.  The  true  beginning  of  society  reform  must  be 
made  by  the  moral,  aesthetic,  and  intellectual  superiors 
of  fashionable  society  as  we  now  have  it.  The  grandes 
dames  must  be  somehow  persuaded  that  to  be  really 
swell,  really  smart,  or  whatever  the  last  word  for  the 
thing  is,  they  must  search  Who's  Who  in  New  York 

135 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

for  men  and  women  of  the  most  brilliant  promise  and 
performance  and  invite  them.  They  must  not  search 
the  banks  and  brokers'  offices  and  lawyers'  offices  for 
their  dancing-men,  but  the  studios,  the  editorial-rooms, 
the  dramatic  agencies,  the  pulpits,  for  the  most  gifted 
young  artists,  assignment  men,  interviewers,  actors, 
and  preachers,  and  apply  to  the  labor -unions  for 
the  cleverest  and  handsomest  artisans;  they  must 
look  up  the  most  beautiful  and  intelligent  girl-stu 
dents  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  department 
stores  for  cultivated  and  attractive  salesladies.  Then, 
when  all  such  people  have  received  cards  to  dinners  or 
dances,  it  will  only  remain  for  them  to  have  previous 
engagements,  and  the  true  beginning  is  made.  Come! 
You  can't  say  the  thing  is  impossible." 

"Not  impossible,  no,"  our  complementary  self  re 
plied.    "  But  difficult." 


XIV 
THE    MAGAZINE    MUSE 

Two  aging  if  not  aged  poets,  one  much  better  if  not 
much  older  than  the  other,  were  talking  of  the  Muse 
as  she  was  in  their  day  and  of  the  Muse  as  she  is  in 
this.  At  the  end,  their  common  mind  was  that  she  was 
a  far  more  facile  Muse  formerly  than  she  is  now.  In 
other  words,  as  the  elder  and  better  poet  put  it,  they 
both  decided  that  many,  many  pieces  of  verse  are  writ 
ten  in  these  times,  and  hidden  away  in  the  multitude 
of  the  magazines,  which  in  those  times  would  have 
won  general  recognition  if  not  reputation  for  the  au 
thors;  they  would  have  been  remembered  from  month 
to  month,  and  their  verses  copied  into  the  newspapers 
from  the  two  or  three  periodicals  then  published,  and, 
if  they  were  not  enabled  to  retire  upon  their  incomes, 
they  would  have  been  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  general 
attention  beyond  anything  money  can  buy  at  the  pres 
ent  day.  This  conclusion  was  the  handsomer  in  the 
two  poets,  because  they  had  nothing  to  gain  and  some 
thing  to  lose  by  it  if  their  opinion  should  ever  become 
known.  It  was  in  a  sort  the  confession  of  equality, 
and  perhaps  even  inferiority,  which  people  do  not  make, 
unless  they  are  obliged  to  it,  in  any  case.  But  these 
poets  were  generous  even  beyond  their  unenvious  tribe, 
and  the  younger,  with  a  rashness  which  his  years  meas 
urably  excused,  set  about  verifying  his  conviction  in 
a  practical  way,  perhaps  the  only  practical  way. 
10  137 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

He  asked  his  publishers  to  get  him  all  the  American 
magazines  published ;  and  has  the  home-keeping  reader 
any  notion  of  the  vastness  of  the  sea  on  which  this  poet 
had  embarked  in  his  daring  exploration?  His  pub 
lishers  sent  him  a  list  of  some  eighty  -  two  monthly 
periodicals  in  all  kinds,  which,  when  he  had  begged 
them  to  confine  it  to  the  literary  kind,  the  aesthetic 
kind  only,  amounted  to  some  fifty.  By  far  the  greater 
number  of  these,  he  found,  were  published  in  "New 
York,  but  two  were  from  Philadelphia,  one  from  Bos 
ton,  one  from  Indianapolis,  and  one  even  from  Chi 
cago  ;  two  were  from  the  Pacific  Slope  generally.  That 
is  to  say,  in  this  city  there  are  issued  every  month  about 
forty-five  magazines  devoted  to  belles-lettres,  of  varying 
degrees  of  excellence,  not  always  connoted  by  their 
varying  prices.  Most  of  them  are  of  the  ten-cent  va 
riety,  and  are  worth  in  most  cases  ten  cents,  and  in  a 
few  cases  twenty-five  or  thirty-five  cents,  quite  like 
those  which  ask  such  sums  for  themselves.  The  cheap 
est  are  not  offensive  to  the  eye  altogether,  as  they  lie 
closed  on  the  dealer's  counter,  though  when  you  open 
them  you  find  them  sometimes  printed  on  paper  of  the 
wood  -  pulp,  wood  -  pulpy  sort,  and  very  loathly  to  the 
touch.  Others  of  the  cheapest  present  their  literature 
on  paper  apparently  as  good  as  that  of  the  dearest ;  and 
as  it  is  not  always  money  which  buys  literary  value, 
especially  from  the  beginners  in  literature,  there  seemed 
every  reason  for  the  poet  to  hope  that  there  would  be 
as  good  poetry  in  the  one  sort  as  in  the  other.  In  his 
generous  animation,  he  hoped  to  find  some  good  poetry 
on  the  wood-pulp  paper  just  as  in  the  Golden  Age  he 
might  have  found  it  carved  by  amorous  shepherds  on 
the  bark  of  trees. 

He  promised  himself  a  great  and  noble  pleasure  from 
his  verification  of  the  opinion  he  shared  with  that  elder 

138 


THE    MAGAZINE    MUSE 

and  better  poet,  and  if  his  delight  must  be  mixed  with 
a  certain  feeling  of  reserved  superiority,  it  could  hard 
ly  be  less  a  delight  for  that  reason.  In  turning  critic, 
the  friendliest  critic,  he  could  not  meet  these  dear  and 
fair  young  poets  on  their  own  level,  but  he  could  at 
least  keep  from  them,  and  from  himself  as  much  as 
possible,  the  fact  that  he  was  looking  down  on  them. 
All  the  magazines  before  him  were  for  the  month  of 
January,  and  though  it  was  possible  that  they  might 
have  shown  a  certain  exhaustion  from  their  extraor 
dinary  efforts  in  their  Christmas  numbers,  still  there 
was  a  chance  of  the  overflow  of  riches  from  those  num 
bers  which  would  trim  the  balance  and  give  them  at 
least  the  average  poetic  value.  At  this  point,  however, 
it  ought  to  be  confessed  that  the  poet,  or  critic,  was 
never  so  willing  a  reader  as  writer  of  occasional  verse, 
and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  was  some  girding 
up  of  the  loins  for  him  before  the  grapple  with  that 
half-hundred  of  magazines.  Though  he  took  them  at 
their  weakest  point,  might  they  not  be  too  much  for 
him? 

He  fetched  a  long  breath,  and  opened  first  that  maga 
zine,  clarum  el  venerabile  nomen,  from  which  he  might 
reasonably  expect  the  greatest  surprises  of  merit  in  the 
verse.  There  were  only  two  pieces,  and  neither  seemed 
to  him  of  the  old-time  quality,  but  neither  was  such 
as  he  would  himself  have  perhaps  rejected  if  he  'iad 
been  editor.  Then  he  plunged  at  the  heap,  and  in  a 
fifteen-cent  magazine  of  recent  renown  he  found  among 
five  poems  a  good  straight  piece  of  realistic  character 
ization  which  did  much  to  cheer  him.  In  this,  a  little 
piece  of  two  stanzas,  the  author  had  got  at  the  heart 
of  a  good  deal  of  America.  In  another  cheap  maga 
zine,  professing  to  be  devoted  wholly  to  stories,  he 
hoped  for  a  breathing-space,  and  was  tasked  by  nothing 

139 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

less  familiar  than  Swift's  versification  of  a  well-known 
maxim  of  La  Rouchefoucauld.  In  a  ten-cent  magazine 
which  is  too  easily  the  best  of  that  sort,  he  found  two 
pieces  of  uncommon  worth,  which  opened  the  way  so 
promisingly,  indeed,  for  happier  fortunes  that  he  was 
not  as  much  surprised  as  he  might  later  have  been 
in  finding  five  poems,  all  good,  in  one  of  the  four 
greater,  or  at  least  dearer,  magazines.  One  of  these 
pieces  was  excellent  landscape,  and  another  a  capital 
nature  piece ;  if  a  third  was  somewhat  strained,  it  was 
also  rather  strong,  and  a  fourth  had  the  quiet  which  it 
is  hard  to  know  from  repose.  Two  poems  in  another 
of  the  high-priced  magazines  were  noticeable,  one  for 
sound  poetic  thinking,  and  the  other  as  very  truthfully 
pathetic.  The  two  in  a  cheap  magazine,  by  two  Ken 
tucky  poets,  a  song  and  a  landscape,  were  one  genuine 
ly  a  song,  and  the  other  a  charming  communion  with 
nature.  In  a  pair  of  periodicals  devoted  to  outdoor 
life,  on  the  tamer  or  wilder  scale,  there  were  three 
poems,  one  celebrating  the  delights  of  a  winter  camp, 
which  he  found  simple,  true  in  feeling,  and  informal 
in  phrasing;  another  full  of  the  joy  of  a  country  ride, 
very  songy,  very  blithe,  and  original;  and  a  third  a 
study  of  scenery  which  it  realized  to  the  mind's  eye, 
with  some  straining  in  the  wording,  but  much  felicity 
in  the  imagining.  A  Mid- Western  magazine  had  an 
excellent  piece  by  a  poet  of  noted  name,  who  failed  to 
observe  that  his  poem  ended  a  stanza  sooner  than  he 
did.  In  a  periodical  devoted  to  short  stories,  or  aban 
doned  to  them,  there  were  two  good  pieces,  one  of  them 
delicately  yet  distinctly  reproducing  certain  poetic  as 
pects  of  New  York,  and  giving  the  sense  of  a  fresh 
talent.  Where  the  critic  would  hardly  have  looked  for 
them,  in  a  magazine  of  professed  fashion  and  avowed 
smartness,  he  came  upon  three  pieces,  one  sweet  arid 

140 


THE    MAGAZINE    MUSE 

fine,  one  wise  and  good,  one  fresh  and  well  turned.  A 
newer  periodical,  rather  going  in  for  literary  quality, 
had  one  fine  piece,  with  a  pretty  surprise  in  it,  and 
another  touched  with  imaginative  observation. 

The  researches  of  the  critic  carried  him  far  into  the 
night,  or  at  least  hours  beyond  his  bedtime,  and  in  the 
dreamy  mood  in  which  he  finally  pursued  them  he  was 
more  interested  in  certain  psychological  conditions  of 
his  own  than  in  many  of  the  verses.  Together  with  a 
mounting  aversion  to  the  work,  he  noted  a  growing 
strength  for  it.  He  could  dispatch  a  dozen  poems  in 
almost  as  many  minutes,  and  not  slight  them,  either; 
but  he  no  longer  jumped  to  his  work.  He  was  aware 
of  trying  to  cheat  himself  in  it,  of  pretending  that  the 
brief  space  between  titles  in  the  table  of  contents,  which 
naturally  implied  a  poem,  sometimes  really  indicated  a 
short  bit  of  prose.  He  would  run  his  eye  hastily  over 
an  index,  and  seek  to  miss  rather  than  find  the  word 
"  poem  "  repeated  after  a  title,  and  when  this  ruse  suc 
ceeded  he  would  go  back  to  the  poem  he  had  skipped 
with  the  utmost  unwillingness.  If  his  behavior  was 
sinful,  he  was  duly  punished  for  it,  in  the  case  of  a 
magazine  which  he  took  up  well  toward  midnight,  re 
joicing  to  come  upon  no  visible  sign  of  poetry  in  it. 
But  his  glance  fell  to  a  grouping  of  titles  in  a  small- 
print  paragraph  at  the  bottom  of  the  page,  and  he  per 
ceived,  on  close  inspection,  that  these  were  all  poems, 
and  that  there  were  eighteen  of  them. 

He  calculated,  roughly,  that  he  had  read  from  eighty- 
five  to  a  hundred  poems  before  he  finished;  after  a 
while  he  ceased  to  take  accurate  count  as  he  went  on, 
but  a  subsequent  review  of  the  magazines  showed  that 
his  guess  was  reasonably  correct.  From  this  review 
it  appeared  that  the  greater  number  of  the  magazines 
published  two  poems  in  each  month,  while  several  pub- 

141 


IMAGINAEY    INTEKVIEWS 

lished  but  one,  and  several  five  or  seven  or  four.  An 
other  remarkable  fact  was  that  the  one  or  two  in  the 
more  self-denying  were  as  bad  as  the  whole  five  or 
seven  or  nine  or  eighteen  of  those  which  had  more 
freely  indulged  themselves  in  verse.  Yet  another  sin 
gular  feature  of  the  inquiry  was  that  one  woman  had  a 
poem  in  five  or  six  of  the  magazines,  and,  stranger  yet, 
always  a  good  poem,  so  that  no  editor  would  have  been 
justified  in  refusing  it.  There  was  a  pretty  frequent 
recurrence  of  names  in  the  title-pages,  and  mostly  these 
names  were  a  warrant  of  quality,  but  not  always  of 
the  author's  best  quality.  The  authorship  was  rather 
equally  divided  between  the  sexes,  and  the  poets  were 
both  young  and  old,  or  as  old  as  poets  ever  can  be. 

When  the  explorer  had  returned  from  the  search, 
which  covered  apparently  a  great  stretch  of  time,  but 
really  of  space,  he  took  his  notes  and  went  with  them 
to  that  elder  friend  of  his  whose  generous  enthusiasm 
had  prompted  his  inquiry.  Together  they  looked  them 
over  and  discussed  the  points  evolved.  "  Then  what 
is  your  conclusion  ?"  the  elder  of  the  two  demanded. 
"  Do  you  still  think  I  was  right,  or  have  you  come  to  a 
different  opinion?" 

"  Oh,  how  should  I  safely  confess  that  I  am  of  a 
different  opinion?  You  would  easily  forgive  me,  but 
what  would  all  those  hundred  poets  whom  I  thought 
not  so  promising  as  you  believed  do  to  my  next  book? 
Especially  what  would  the  poetesses?" 

"  There  is  something  in  that.  But  you  need  not 
be  explicit.  If  you  differ  with  me,  you  can  generalize. 
What,  on  the  whole,  was  the  impression  you  got  ?  Had 
none  of  the  pieces  what  we  call  distinction,  for  want 
of  a  better  word  or  a  clearer  idea  ?" 

"  I  understand.  No,  I  should  say,  not  one ;  thougli 
here  and  there  one  nearly  had  it — so  nearly  that  I  held 

"  142 


THE    MAGAZINE    MUSE 

my  breath  from  not  being  quite  sure.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  should  say  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
excellence,  if  you  know  what  that  means." 

"  I  can  imagine,"  the  elder  poet  said.  "  It  is  another 
subterfuge.  What  do  you  really  intend  ?" 

"  Why,  that  the  level  was  pretty  high.  Never  so 
high  as  the  sky,  but  sometimes  as  high  as  the  sky 
scraper.  There  was  an  occasional  tallness,  the  effect, 
I  think,  of  straining  to  be  higher  than  the  thought  or 
the  feeling  warranted.  And  some  of  the  things  had  a 
great  deal  of  naturalness." 

"  Come!     That  isn't  so  bad." 

"  But  naturalness  can  be  carried  to  a  point  where  it 
becomes  affectation.  This  happened  in  some  cases 
where  I  thought  I  was  going  to  have  some  pleasure  of 
the  simplicity,  but  found  at  last  that  the  simplicity 
was  a  pose.  Sometimes  there  was  a  great  air  of  being 
untrammelled.  But  there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  in 
formal,  and  there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  unmannerly." 

"Yes?" 

"  I  think  that  in  the  endeavor  to  escape  from  con 
vention  our  poets  have  lost  the  wish  for  elegance,  which 
was  a  prime  charm  of  the  Golden  Age.  Technically, 
as  well  as  emotionally,  the}7  let  themselves  loose  too 
much,  and  the  people  of  the  Golden  Age  never  let 
themselves  loose.  There  is  too  much  Nature  in  them, 
which  is  to  say,  not  enough;  for,  after  all,  in  her  little 
aesthetic  attempts,  Mature  is  very  modest." 

The  elder  poet  brought  the  younger  sharply  to  book. 
"  Now  you  are  wandering.  Explain  again." 

<(  Why,  when  you  and  I  were  young — you  were  al 
ways  and  always  will  be  young — 

"None  of  that!" 

"  It  seemed  to  me  that  we  wished  to  be  as  careful 
of  the  form  as  the  most  formal  of  our  poetic  forebears, 

143 


IMAGINAKY    INTERVIEWS 

and  that  we  would  not  let  the  smallest  irregularity 
escape  us  in  our  study  to  make  the  form  perfect.  We 
cut  out  the  tall  word;  we  restrained  the  straining; 
we  tried  to  keep  the  wording  within  the  bounds  of  the 
dictionary;  we  wished  for  beauty  in  our  work  so  much 
that  our  very  roughness  was  the  effect  of  hammering; 
the  grain  we  left  was  where  we  had  used  the  file  to 
produce  it." 

"  Was  it  ?  And  you  say  that  with  these  new  fellows 
it  isn't  so  ?" 

"  Well,  what  do  you  say  to  such  a  word  as  c  danken- 
ing/  which  occurred  in  a  very  good  landscape  ?" 

"  One  such  word  in  a  hundred  poems  ?" 

"  One  such  word  in  a  million  would  have  been  too 
many.  It  made  me  feel  that  they  would  all  have  liked 
to  say  (  dankening/  or  something  of  the  sort.  And  in 
the  new  poets,  on  other  occasions,  I  have  found  faulty 
syntax,  bad  rhymes,  limping  feet.  The  editors  are  to 
blame  for  that,  when  it  happens.  The  editor  who 
printed  '  dankening '  was  more  to  blame  than  the  poet 
who  wrote  it,  and  loved  the  other  ugly  word  above  all 
his  other  vocables."  The  elder  poet  was  silent,  and  the 
other  took  fresh  courage.  "  Yes,  I  say  it !  You  were 
wrong  in  your  praise  of  the  present  magazine  verse  at 
the  cost  of  that  in  our  day.  When  we  were  commencing 
poets,  the  young  or  younger  reputations  were  those  of 
Stedman,  of  Bayard  Taylor,  of  the  Stoddards,  of  Al- 
drich,  of  Celia  Thaxter,  of  Eose  Terry,  of  Harriet 
Prescdtt,  of  Bret  Harte,  of  Charles  Warren  Stoddard, 
of  the  Piatts,  of  Eitz  James  O'Brien,  of  Eitzhugh 
Ludlow,  of  a  dozen  more,  whom  the  best  of  the  newest 
moderns  cannot  rival.  These  were  all  delicate  and 
devoted  and  indefatigable  artists  and  lovers  of  form. 
It  cannot  do  the  later  generation  any  good  to  equal 
them  with  ours." 

144 


TITE    MAGAZINE    MUSE 

"  There  is  something  in  what  you  say."  The  elder 
poet  was  silent  for  a  time.  Then  he  asked,  "  Out  of 
the  hundred  poems  you  read  in  your  fifty  magazines, 
how  many  did  you  sav  were  what  you  would  call 
good  ?" 

His  junior  counted  up,  and  reported,  "  About  twenty- 
four." 

"  Well,  don't  you  call  that  pretty  fair,  in  a  hun 
dred  ?  I  do.  Reflect  that  these  were  all  the  magazines 
of  one  month,  and  it  is  probable  that  there  will  be  as 
many  good  poems  in  the  magazines  of  every  month  in 
the  year.  That  will  give  us  two  hundred  and  eighty- 
eight  good  poems  during  1907.  Before  the  first  decade 
of  the  new  century  is  ended,  we  shall  have  had  eleven 
hundred  and  fifty-two  good  magazine  poems.  Do  you 
suppose  that  as  many  good  magazine  poems  were  writ 
ten  during  the  last  four  years  of  the  first  decade  of 
the  eighteenth  century  ?  Can  you  name  as  many  your 
self?" 

"  Certainly  not  Nobody  remembers  the  magazine 
poems  of  that  time,  and  nobody  will  remember  the 
poems  of  the  four  years  ending  the  present  decade." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  not  one  of  them  is  worth 
remembering  ?" 

The  younger  poet  paused  a  moment.  Then  he  said, 
with  the  air  of  a  cross-examined  witness,  "  Under  ad 
vice  of  counsel,  I  decline  to  answer." 


XV 

COMPARATIVE    LUXURIES    OF    TRAVEL 

ON  a  night  well  toward  its  noon,  many  years  ago,  a 
friend  of  the  Easy  Chair  (so  close  as  to  be  at  the  same 
time  its  worst  enemy)  was  walking  wearily  up  and 
down  in  the  station  at  Portland,  Maine,  and  wonder 
ing  if  the  time  for  his  train  to  start  would  ever  come, 
and,  if  the  time  did  come,  whether  his  train  would 
really  take  advantage  of  that  opportunity  to  leave  Port 
land.  It  was,  of  course,  a  night  train,  and  of  course 
he  had  engaged  a  lower  berth  in  the  sleeping-car;  there 
are  certain  things  that  come  by  nature  with  the  com 
fortable  classes  to  which  the  friend  of  the  Easy  Chair 
belonged.  He  would  no  more  have  thought  of  travel 
ling  in  one  of  the  empty  day  coaches  side-tracked  in 
the  station  than  he  would  have  thought  of  going  by 
stage,  as  he  could  remember  doing  in  his  boyhood.  He 
stopped  beside  the  cars  and  considered  their  potential 
passengers  with  amaze  and  compassion;  he  laughed  at 
the  notion  of  his  being  himself  one  of  them ;  and,  when 
he  turned  his  back  on  them,  he  was  arrested  by  the 
sight  of  an  elderly  pair  looking  from  the  vantage  of  the 
platform  into  the  interior  of  a  lighted  Pullman  parlor- 
car  which,  for  reasons  of  its  own,  was  waiting  in  lumi 
nous  detachment  apart  from  the  day  coaches.  There 
was  something  engaging  in  the  gentle  humility  of  the 
elderly  pair  who  peered  into  the  long,  brilliant  saloon 

146 


LUXURIES    OF    TKAVEL 

with  an  effect  not  so  much  of  ignorance  as  of  inex 
perience.  They  were  apparently  not  so  rustic  as  they 
were  what  another  friend  of  the  Easy  Chair  calls  vil- 
laginous;  and  they  seemed  not  of  the  commonest  unin 
formed  villaginosity,  but  of  general  intelligence  such 
as  comes  of  reading  and  thinking  of  many  modern 
things  which  one  has  never  seen.  As  the  eavesdropper 
presently  made  out  from  a  colloquy  unrestrained  by 
consciousness  of  him,  they  had  never  seen  a  parlor-car 
before,  except  perhaps  as  it  flashed  by  their  meek  little 
home  depot  with  the  rest  of  some  express  train  that 
never  stopped  there. 

"  It  is  splendid,  John,"  the  woman  said,  holding  by 
the  man's  arm  while  she  leaned  forward  to  the  window 
which  she  tiptoed  to  reach  with  her  eager  eyes. 

"  I  guess  it's  all  of  that,"  the  man  consented,  sadly. 

"  I  presume  we  sha'n't  ever  go  in  one,"  she  suggested. 

"  Not  likely,"  he  owned,  in  the  same  discouraged 
tone. 

They  were  both  silent  for  a  time.  Then  the  woman 
said,  with  a  deep,  hopeless  aspiration,  "  Dear !  I  wish 
I  could  see  inside  one,  once !" 

The  man  said  nothing,  and  if  he  shared  her  bold 
ambition  he  made  no  sign. 

The  eavesdropper  faltered  near  their  kind  backs, 
wishing  for  something  more  from  them  which  should 
give  their  souls  away,  but  they  remained  silently  stand 
ing  there,  and  he  did  not  somehow  feel  authorized 
to  make  them  reflect  that,  if  the  car  was  lighted  up, 
it  must  be  open,  and  that  the  friendly  porter  some 
where  within  would  not  mind  letting  them  look 
through  it  under  his  eye.  Perhaps  they  did  reflect, 
and  the  woman  was  trying  to  embolden  the  man  to  the 
hardy  venture.  In  the  end  they  did  not  attempt  it, 
but  they  turned  away  with  another  sigh  from  the 

147 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

woman  which  found  its  echo  in  the  eavesdropper's 
heart.  Doubtless  if  they  had  penetrated  that  splendid 
interior  without  having  paid  for  seats,  it  would,  in  some 
fine,  mystical  sort,  have  pauperized  them;  it  would 
have  corrupted  them;  they  would  have  wished  after 
that  always  to  travel  in  such  cars,  when  clearly  they 
could  not  afford  it;  very  possibly  it  might  have  led  to 
their  moral  if  not  financial  ruin.  So  he  tried  to  still 
his  bosom's  ache,  but  he  could  never  quite  forget  that 
gentle  pair  with  their  unrequited  longing,  and  the  other 
day  they  came  almost  the  first  thing  into  his  mind 
when  he  read  that  a  great  German  steamship  company 
had  some  thoughts  of  putting  on  a  train  of  Pullman 
cars  from  the  port  of  arrival  to  the  mercantile  me 
tropolis  which  was  the  real  end  of  their  ships'  voyages. 
He  thought,  whimsically,  perversely,  how  little  differ 
ence  it  would  make  to  that  pair,  how  little  to  those 
measureless  most  whose  journeys  shall  end  in  heaven, 
where  Pullman  passengers,  or  even  passengers  by  the 
ordinary  European  first-class  cars,  may  be  only  too  glad 
to  meet  them.  He  gave  a  looser  rein  to  his  thoughts 
and  considered  how  very  little  the  ordinary  necessities 
of  life,  such  as  Pullman  cars  and  taxicabs  and  electric 
radiators  and  non-storage  chickens  and  unsalted  butter 
concern  the  great  mass  of  the  saints,  who  would  find 
them  the  rarest  luxuries,  and  could  hardly  be  imagined 
coveting  them;  and  then  from  this  wild  revery  he  fell 
to  asking  himself  whether  a  Pullman  train  would  be 
such  a  great  advance  or  advantage  over  the  old-fash 
ioned  European  first-class  carriages  in  which  he  had 
been  so  long  content  to  travel  with  the  native  nobility. 
Self -brought  to  book  on  this  point,  he  had  to  own  that 
he  had  once  had  moments  of  thinking  in  a  German 
second-class  car  that  he  would  not  change  to  an  Amer 
ican  Pullman  if  he  could  for  even  less  than  a  third 

148 


LUXURIES    OF    TRAVEL 

more  money.  Tie  recalled  a  pleasant  run  from  Crewe 
to  Edinburgh  in  a  third-class  English  car,  when  he  never 
once  thought  of  a  Pullman  car  except  to  think  it  was 
no  hotter.  To  be  sure,  this  was  after  two-thirds  of  his 
third-class  fellow-passengers  had  got  out,  and  he  was 
left  to  the  sole  enjoyment  of  two-thirds  of  the  seats. 
It  is  the  luxury  of  space  which  your  more  money  buys 
you  in  England,  where  no  one  much  lower  than  a  duke 
or  a  prime  minister  now  goes  first  class  for  a  long 
haul.  For  short  hauls  it  is  different,  and  on  the  Con 
tinent  it  is  altogether  different.  There  you  are  often 
uncomfortably  crowded  in  the  first-class  carriages,  and 
doubtless  would  be  in  a  Pullman  if  there  were  any,  so 
that  if  you  are  wise,  or  only  well  informed,  you  will 
give  the  guard  a  shilling  to  telegraph  before  leaving 
London  and  get  you  a  number  on  the  Rapide  from 
Calais  to  Paris. 

It  is  astonishing  how  quickly  knowledge  of  any  such 
advisable  precaution  spreads  among  even  such  arrogant 
ly  stupid  people  as  first-class  passengers  ordinarily  are. 
By  the  time  a  certain  train  had  started  for  Dover  with 
that  friend  of  the  Easy  Chair's  already  mentioned, 
every  soul  in  his  first  -  class  compartment  had  tele 
graphed  ahead,  and  when  they  arrived  in  Calais  the 
earliest  Englishman  who  got  past  the  customs  ran 
ahead  and  filled  the  racks  of  the  carriage  with  his 
hand-baggage,  so  that  tne  latest  Frenchman  was  obliged 
to  jump  up  and  down  and  scream,  and  perhaps  swear 
in  his  strange  tongue,  before  he  could  find  room  for 
his  valise,  and  then  calm  down  and  show  himself  the 
sweetest  and  civilest  of  men,  and  especially  the  obedient 
humble  servant  of  the  Englishman  who  had  now  made 
a  merit  of  making  way  for  his  bag. 

At  this  point  the  fable  teaches  that  money  will  not 
buy  everything  in  European  travel,  though  some  Amer- 

140 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

icans  imagine  it  will.  It  will  not,  for  instance,  buy 
comfort  or  decency,  though  it  will  secure  privacy  in  a 
French  sleeper  between  Paris  and  Marseilles  either 
way.  For  an  augmentation  of  forty-five  francs,  or  nine 
dollars,  on  the  price  of  a  first-class  ticket,  it  will  buy 
you  a  berth  in  a  small  pen  which  you  must  share  with 
another  animal,  and  be  tossed  hither  and  yon,  night 
long,  as  in  the  berth  of  a  Bermuda  steamer.  Second- 
class  passengers  in  France  or  Italy  cannot  buy  a  berth 
in  a  sleeper  for  any  money,  and  they  may  go  hang  or 
stand,  for  all  the  International  Sleeping-Car  Company 
cares;  and  this  suggests  the  question  whether  in  our 
own  free  and  equal  land  the  passengers  in  the  ordinary 
day  coaches  are  ever  invited,  by  the  first  call  or  the 
last,  to  share  the  hospitalities  of  our  dining-cars ;  or  are 
these  restricted  to  the  proud  stomachs  of  the  Pullman 
passengers  ? 

No,  no;  the  privacy  of  a  French  sleeping-car  is  all 
very  well,  but  for  decency  give  our  friend  a  good,  old- 
fashioned  Pullman  sleeper  at  a  third  the  money,  with 
its  curtains  swaying  with  the  motion  of  the  car  and 
muting  the  long-drawn,  loud-drawn  breathing  of  the 
serried  sleepers  behind  them.  To  be  sure,  in  the  morn 
ing,  when  stooping  backs  begin  to  round  the  curtains 
out,  and  half-shod  feet  to  thrust  into  the  narrow  gang 
way  between  them,  the  effect  is  of  a  familiarity,  an 
intimacy;  but  so  much  trust,  so  much  brotherly  kind 
ness  goes  with  it  all  that  you  could  not  call  it  inde 
cency,  though  certainly  you  could  not  claim  it  privacy. 
It  only  proves,  as  that  friend  of  ours  was  saying,  that 
money  cannot  buy  everything,  and  that,  if  you  expect 
the  Pullman  parlor-cars  to  be  an  improvement  on  the 
German  first-class  cars,  you  will  be  disappointed,  prob 
ably.  First-class  cars  vary  much  all  over  Europe ;  even 
second-class  cars  do.  In  Austria  they  are  not  nearly 

150 


LUXURIES    OF    TRAVEL 

so  good  as  in  Germany,  and  in  Italy — poor,  dear  Italy ! 
— they  are  worse  still.     That  is  because,  the  enemies 
of  socialism  say,  the  roads  are  state  roads,  or  because, 
the   friends   of  socialism   say,   the   expropriated   com 
panies   have   dumped   their   worn-out   rolling-stock   on 
the  commonwealth,  which  must  bear  the  shame  of  it 
with  the  stranger.     Between  these  clashing  claims  wo 
will  not  put  our  blade.    All  we  say  is  that  Italian  rail 
road  travel  is  as  bad  as  heart  could  wish — the  heart 
that  loves  Italy  and  holds  dear  the  memory  of  the  days 
when  there  were  few  railroads,  if  any,  there,  and  one 
still  went  by  diligence  or  vettura.    The  only  absolutely 
good  railroad  travel  is  in  England,  where  the  corridor 
car  imagined  from  the  Pullman  has  realized  the  most 
exacting  ideal  of  the  traveller  of  any  class.     In  the 
matter  of  dining-cars  we  have  stood  still   (having  at 
tained  perfection  at  a  bound),  while  the  English  diner 
has  shot  ahead  in  simplicity  and  quality  of  refection. 
With  us  a  dollar  buys  more  dinner  than  you  wish  or 
like;  with  them  three  shillings  pay  for  an  elegant  suf 
ficiency,  and  a  tip  of  sixpence  purchases  an  explicit 
gratitude  from  the  waiter  which  a   quarter  is   often 
helpless  to  win  from  his  dark  antitype  with  us.     The 
lunch  served  on  the  steamer  train   from   London  to 
Liverpool  leaves  the  swollen,  mistimed  dinner  on  the 
Boston  express — 

"  But  what  about  that  5  P.M.  breakfast  which  you 
got,  no  longer  ago  than  last  September,  on  the  express 
between  Salisbury  and  Exeter?"  our  friend  exults  to 
ask ;  and  we  condescend  to  answer  with  forced  candor : 

'  Yes,  that  was  rather  droll.  No  Englishman  would 
dream  of  ordering  afternoon  tea  consisting  of  chops, 
boiled  potatoes,  and  a  pot  of  souchong,  and,  if  we  chose 
to^do  so,  we  took  a  serious  chance.  But  starvation  will 
drive  one  to  anything;  we  had  had  nothing  to  eat  since 

151 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

leaving  Salisbury  three  hours  before,  and  in  the  Eng 
lish  air  this  is  truly  famine.  Besides,  the  amiable 
agent  who  came  to  our  compartment  for  our  order 
pledged  his  word  that  those  potatoes  should  be  ready 
in  twenty  minutes;  and  so  they  were,  and  so  were  the 
chops,  and  so,  of  course,  was  the  tea.  What  he  had 
failed  to  specify  was  that  the  dining-car  had  been  left, 
by  divers  defections  at  the  junctions  passed,  the  last 
car  in  our  train,  and  that  it  was  now  straining  at  its 
leash  in  wild  leaps  and  bounds.  One  reached  it  by 
passing  through  more  corridor  cars  than  there  are  Pull 
mans  and  day  coaches  in  a  west-bound  Lake  Shore 
train,  and  when  one  arrived  one  reeled  and  flounced 
into  one's  seat  by  such  athletics  as  one  uses  in  a  Ber 
muda  steamer  (or  did  use  in  the  old  fifteen-hundred- 
ton  kind)  crossing  the  Gulf  Stream.  When  once  com 
paratively  secure  in  one's  chair,  the  combat  with  the 
lunch  began.  Mrs.  Siddons  would  have  been  at  home 
there,  for  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  stab  the  pota 
toes,  and  all  one's  cunning  of  fence  was  needed  to  hold 
one's  own  with  the  chops.  But  how  delicious  they 
were!  How  the  first  mealed  and  the  last  melted  in 
the  mouth;  and  the  tea,  when  once  poured  from  the 
dizzy  height  at  which  the  pot  had  to  be  held,  and  the 
wild  whirl  in  which  the  cup  had  to  be  caught  to  the 
lips,  how  it  cheered  without  inebriating,  and  how  the 
spirit  rose  to  meet  it !  The  waiter,  dancing  and  sway 
ing  like  any  ship's  steward,  served  the  stray  Americans 
with  as  much  respectful  gravity  as  if  they  had  been 
county-family  English  and  he  had  been  for  generations 
in  their  service.  He  did  not  deprecate  the  capers  of  the 
car,  but  only  casually  owned  that,  when  it  happened  to 
be  the  last  in  the  train,  it  did  pitch  about  a  bit,  sir. 

!Nb,  England  is  the  only  country  where  you  can  get 
the  whole  worth  of  your  money  in  railroad  travel,  and 

152 


LUXURIES    OF    TRAVEL 

the  well-to-do  sinner  can  enjoy  the  comfort  which  must 
be  his  advance  recompense  in  this  world  for  the  hap 
piness  he  cannot  warrantably  count  upon  in  the  next. 
That  steamer  train  of  Pullmans  in  Germany  will  never 
contest  the  palm  with  the  English  corridor  train;  nor 
will  our  palatial,  porterless  depots  vie  with  the  sim 
plest  of  these  English  wayside  stations,  where  the  soft 
endearments  of  the  railway  servants  penetrate  to  the 
very  interior  of  the  arriving  stranger's  compartment 
and  relieve  him  of  all  anxiety  for  his  hand-baggage. 
Then  the  cloak-room,  that  refuge  of  temporary  sojourn, 
where  his  baggage  remains  in  the  porter's  charge  till 
it  is  put  back  into  the  train,  who  will  contend  that 
our  parcels'  windows,  with  their  high  counters  fencing 
the  depositor  from  the  grim  youths  standing  like  re 
ceiving  and  paying  tellers  within,  compare  with  the 
English  cloak-room  ?  Its  very  name  descends  from  the 
balls  and  assemblies  of  the  past,  and  graces  the  public 
enjoyment  of  its  convenience  with  something  of  the 
courtesy  and  dignity  of  the  exclusive  pleasures  of  the 
upper  classes;  it  brings  to  one  sense  a  vision  of  white 
shoulders  bent  over  trim  maids  slippering  slim  feet,  and 
to  another  the  faint,  proud  odors  of  flowers  that  with 
ered  a  hundred  years  ago. 

But  what  vain  concession  is  this  to  the  outworn  ideals 
of  a  state  and  a  condition  justly  superseded!  How 
far  we  have  got  from  that  gentle  pair  with  whom  we 
began  peering  into  the  parlor-car  in  Portland,  Maine ! 
To  such  as  they  it  will  matter  little  whether  Pullman 
cars  are  or  are  not  put  on  that  steamer  train  in  North 
Germany.  A  great  danger  is  that  the  vast  horde  of 
Americans  who  travel  will  forget  the  immeasurable 
majority  who  remain  at  home,  and  will  lose  in 
their  sophistication  the  heaven  -  glimpsing  American 
point  of  view.  It  is  verv  precious,  that  point  of 

11  153 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

view,  and  the  foreigner  who  wins  it  is  a  happier  man 
than  the  native  who  purse-proudly  puts  it  away.  When 
we  part  with  the  daily  habit  of  trolleys  and  begin  to 
think  in  cabs  and  taxicabs;  when  we  pass  the  line  of 
honest  day  coaches  and  buy  a  seat  in  the  parlor-car; 
when  we  turn  from  pie,  or  baked  beans,  and  coffee  at 
the  refreshment-counter  and  keep  our  hunger  for  the 
table  d'hote  of  the  dining-car;  when  we  buy  a  room 
in  the  steamboat  in  disdain  of  the  berth  that  comes 
with  our  ticket;  when  we  refuse  to  be  one  of  four  or 
even  two  in  the  cabin  of  the  simpler  steamers  and  will 
not  go  abroad  on  any  vessel  of  less  than  twenty  or 
thirty  thousand  tons,  with  small,  separate  tables  and 
tuxedos  in  the  saloon ;  when  we  forsake  the  clothing- 
store  with  its  democratic  misfit  for  all  figures  and  order 
our  suits  in  London,  then  we  begin  to  barter  away  our 
birthright  of  republican  simplicity,  and  there  is  soon 
nothing  for  us  but  a  coronet  by  marriage  in  the  family 
or  a  quarter  -  section  of  public  land  in  northwestern 
Canada. 

There  has  been  altogether  too  much  talk  (some  of 
it,  we  contritely  own,  has  been  ours)  of  the  compara 
tive  comforts  and  discomforts  of  life  for  the  better-to- 
do  in  Europe  and  America.  In  the  demand  for  Pull 
man  trains  between  our  port  of  arrival  and  the  end  of 
our  journey  when  we  go  to  the  Continent  for  a  much- 
needed  rest,  we  are  apt  to  forget  the  fellow  -  citizens 
whom  we  saw  across  the  impassable  barrier  dividing 
our  first  class  from  them  on  the  steamer,  and  who  will 
find  the  second-class  German  cars  quite  good  enough 
for  them,  and  better  than  our  day  coaches  at  home. 
If  we  cannot  remember  these,  then  let  us  remember 
those  for  whom  Pullmans  are  not  good  enough  and 
who  spurn  the  dust  of  our  summer  ways  in  their  auto 
mobiles,  and  leave  the  parlor-cars  to  our  lower-class 

154 


LUXURIES    OF    TRAVEL 

vulgarity.  Such  people  take  their  automobiles  to  Eu 
rope  with  them,  and  would  not  use  that  possible  Pull 
man  train  if  they  found  it  waiting  for  them  at  the 
port  of  arrival  in  Germany.  What  is  the  use?  It  will 
soon  not  be  an  affair  of  automobiles,  but  of  aeroplanes, 
at  the  ports  of  European  arrival,  and  a  Pullman  train 
will  look  sadly  strange  and  old  to  the  debarking  pas 
sengers.  No  one  will  want  to  take  it,  as  no  one  would 
now  want  to  take  a  bicycle,  or  even  a  "  bicycle  built  for 
two."  These  things  are  all  comparative;  there  is  noth 
ing  positive,  nothing  ultimate  in  the  luxuries,  the  splen 
dors  of  life.  Soon  the  last  word  in  them  takes  on  a 
vulgarity  of  accent;  and  Distinction  turns  from  them 
"  with  sick  and  scornful  looks  averse,"  and  listens  for 
the 

"airy   tongues   that   syllable   men's   names 
On  sands  and  shores  and  desert  wildernesses." 

Simplicity,  at  the  furthest  possible  remove  from  all 
complexity,  will  be  the  next  word — the  word  that  fol 
lows  the  last,  the  woman's  word. 


XVI 

QUALITIES    WITHOUT    DEFECTS 

THEY  had  got  to  that  point  in  their  walk  and  talk 
where  the  talk  might  be  best  carried  forward  by  ar 
resting  the  walk;  and  they  sat  down  on  a  bench  of  the 
Ramble  in  Central  Park,  and  provisionally  watched  a 
man  feeding  a  squirrel  with  peanuts.  The  squirrel 
had  climbed  up  the  leg  of  the  man's  trousers  and  over 
the  promontory  above,  and  the  man  was  holding  very 
still,  flattered  by  the  squirrel's  confidence,  and  anxious 
not  to  frighten  it  away  by  any  untoward  movement; 
if  the  squirrel  had  been  a  child  bestowing  its  first  in 
telligent  favors  upon  him  the  man  could  not  have  been 
prouder.  He  was  an  old  fellow,  one  of  many  who 
pamper  the  corrupt  rodents  of  the  Park,  and  reduce 
them  from  their  native  independence  to  something 
like  the  condition  of  those  pauper  wards  of  the  na 
tion  on  our  Indian  Reservations,  to  whom  a  blurred 
image  of  the  chase  offers  itself  at  stated  intervals 
in  the  slaughter  of  the  Government's  dole  of  beef- 
cattle. 

The  friend  to  whom  this  imperfect  parallel  occurred 
recalled  his  thoughts  from  it  and  said,  with  single  refer 
ence  to  the  man  and  the  squirrel :  "  I  suppose  that's  an 
expression  of  the  sort  of  thing  we've  been  talking  about. 

Kindness  to  animals  is  an  impulse,  isn't  it,  of  the  '  nat- 

156 


QUALITIES    WITHOUT    DEFECTS 

ural  piety '  embracing  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhool  of  man  ?" 

"  I  don't  think  it's  quite  so  modern  as  that  for 
mulation,"  the  other  friend  questioned.  "  I  was 
thinking  it  was  very  eighteenth  -  century ;  part  of 
the  universal  humanitarian  movement  of  the  time 
when  the  master  began  to  ask  himself  whether  the 
slave  was  not  also  a  man  and  a  brother,  and  the 
philanthropist  visited  the  frightful  prisons  of  the 
day  and  remembered  those  in  bonds  as  bound  with 
them." 

"  Yes,  you  may  say  that,"  the  first  allowed.  "  But 
benevolence  toward  dumb  creatures  originated  very 
much  further  back  than  the  eighteenth  century.  There 
was  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  you  know,  who  preached  to 
the  birds,  didn't  he  ?  and  Walter  von  der  Vogelweide, 
who  pensioned  them.  And  several  animals — cats,  croco 
diles,  cows,  and  the  like — enjoyed  a  good  deal  of  con 
sideration  among  the  Egyptians.  The  serpent  used  to 
have  a  pretty  good  time  as  a  popular  religion.  And 
what  about  the  Stoics?  They  were  rather  kind  to 
animals,  weren't  they?  Why  should  Pliny's  Doves 
have  come  down  to  us  in  mosaic  if  he  cultivated  them 
solely  for  the  sake  of  broiled  squabs  ?  It's  true  that  the 
mode  Roman,  before  the  extension  of  the  S.  P.  C.  A. 
to  V  city,  used  his  horse  cruelly  upon  the  perfectly 
unquestionable  ground  that  the  poor  beast  was  not  a 
Christian." 

"I  don't  remember  about  the  Stoics  exactly,"  the 
second  friend  mused  aloud;  arid  the  first  let  this  go, 
though  they  both  understood  that  very  likely  he  not 
only  did  not  remember,  but  had  never  known.  "  They 
had  so  many  virtues  that  they  must  have  been  kind  to 
brutes,  but  I  taste  something  more  Cowperian,  more 
Wordsworthian,  than  Marcus  -  Aurelian  in  our  own 

157 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

kindness.     These  poets  taught  me,  so  far  as  I  could 
learn,  not  to 

'enter  on  my  list  of  friends  the  man 
Who  needlessly  sets  foot  upon  a  worm/ 

and 

'  Never  to  mix  my  pleasure  or  my  pride 
With  sorrow  of  the  meanest  thing  that  breathes.' " 

"  Yes,  but  I  don't  like  giving  up  the  Stoics ;  we  may 
have  to  come  back  to  their  ground  if  things  keep  on 
going  the  way  they  have  gone  for  the  last  generation. 
The  Stoics  had  a  high  ideal  of  duty;  it's  hard  to  see 
that  the  Christian  ideal  is  higher,  though  they  taught 
themselves  to  be  proudly  good,  and  we  (if  we  may  still 
say  we  when  we  say  Christians)  are  always  trying  to 
teach  ourselves  to  be  humbly  good." 

"  What  do  you  mean,"  the  second  of  the  friends  de 
manded,  "  by  coming  back  to  their  ground  ?" 

"  Why,"  the  first  responded,  picking  up  a  twig  that 
opportunely  dropped  at  his  feet,  and  getting  out  his 
knife  to  whittle  it,  "  I  suppose  they  were  the  first  ag 
nostics,  and  we  who  don't  so  much  deny  the  Deity  as 
ignore  Him — " 

"  I  see,"  the  second  answered,  sadly.  "  But  aren't 
you  throwing  up  the  sponge  for  faith  rather  pre 
maturely?  The  power  of  believing  has  a  tremendous 
vitality.  I  heard  a  Catholic  once  say  to  a  Protestant 
friend,  '  You  know  the  Church  has  outlived  schisms 
much  older  than  yours.'  And  inside  of  Protestantism 
as  well  as  Catholicism  there  is  a  tremendous  power 
of  revival.  We  have  seen  it  often.  After  an  age 
of  unbelief  an  age  of  belief  is  rather  certain  to 
follow." 

"  Well,   well,   I'm  willing.     I'm  no  more  agnostic 

158 


QUALITIES    WITHOUT    DEFECTS 

than  you  are.  I  should  be  glad  of  an  age  of  faith  for 
the  rest  to  my  soul,  if  for  no  other  reason.  I  was  hark 
ing  back  to  the  Stoics  not  only  because  they  were  good 
to  animals,  if  they  were  good,  but  because  they  seemed 
to  have  the  same  barren  devotion  to  duty  which  has 
survived  my  faith  as  well  as  my  creed.  But  why,  if 
I  neither  expect  happiness  nor  dread  misery,  should  I 
still  care  to  do  my  duty  ?  And  I  certainly  always  do." 

"  What,  always  ?" 

"  Well,  nearly  always." 

The  friends   laughed  together,   and  the   first   said, 
'  What  a  pity  the  Gilbertian  humor  has  gone  out  so ; 
you  can't  adapt  it  to  a  daily  need  any  longer  without 
the  risk  of  not  being  followed." 

The  other  sighed.  "  Nearly  everything  goes  out,  ex 
cept  duty.  If  that  went  out,  I  don't  think  I  should 
have  much  pleasure  in  life." 

"  ^°>  J°u  would  be  dead,  without  the  hope  of  resur 
rection.  If  there  is  anything  comes  direct  from  the 
Creative  Force,  from 

'La  somma  sapienza  o  il  primo  amore/ 

it  is  the  sense  of  duty,  '  the  moral  law  within  us/  which 
Kant  divined  as  unmistakably  delivered  from  God  to 
man.  I  use  the  old  terminology." 

"  Don't  apologize.  It  still  serves  our  turn ;  I  don't 
know  that  anything  else  serves  it  yet.  And  you  make 
me  think  of  what  dear  old  M.  D.  C—  -  told  me  shortly 
after  his  wife  died.  lie  had  wished,  when  they  both 
owned  that  the  end  was  near,  to  suggest  some  comfort 
in  the  hope  of  another  life,  to  clutch  at  that  straw  to 
save  his  drowning  soul ;  but  she  stopped  him.  She  said, 
'  There  is  nothing  but  duty,  the  duty  we  have  wished  to 
do  and  tried  to  do.'  " 

159 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

The  friends  were  silent  in  the  pathos  of  the  fact, 
and  then  the  first  said,  "  I  suppose  we  all  wish  to  do  our 
duty,  even  when  we  don't  try  or  don't  try  hard 
enough." 

The  other  conjectured,  "  Perhaps,  after  all,  it's  a 
question  of  strength;  wickedness  is  weakness." 

"  That  formula  won't  always  serve ;  still,  it  will 
serve  in  a  good  many  cases ;  possibly  most.  It  won't  do 
to  preach  it,  though." 

"  No,  we  must  cultivate  strength  of  character.  I 
wonder  how  ?" 

"  Well,  your  Stoics—" 

"My  Stoics?" 

"  Anybody's  Stoics  —  did  it  by  self  -  denial.  When 
they  saw  a  pleasure  coming  their  way  they  sidestepped 
it;  they  went  round  the  corner,  and  let  it  go  by  while 
they  recruited  their  energies.  Then  when  they  saw  a 
duty  coming  they  stepped  out  and  did  it." 

"  It  seems  very  simple.  But  aren't  you  rather 
cynical  ?" 

"  That's  what  people  call  one  when  one  puts  ethics 
picturesquely.  But  perhaps  I've  rather  overdone  it 
about  the  Stoics.  Perhaps  they  wouldn't  have  refused 
to  enjoy  a  pleasure  at  their  own  expense,  at  their  cost 
in  some  sort  of  suffering  to  themselves.  They  really 
seem  to  have  invented  the  Christian  ideal  of  duty." 

"  And  a  very  good  thing.  It  may  be  all  that  will  be 
left  of  Christianity  in  the  end,  if  the  Christian  hope 
of  reward  goes  as  the  Christian  fear  of  punishment 
has  gone.  It  seems  to  have  been  all  there  was  of  it  in 
the  beginning." 

The  second  of  the  friends  said  at  this,  "  I  don't  know 
that  I  should  go  so  far  as  that." 

The  first  returned,  "Well,  I  don't  know  that  I 
should  ask  you.  I  don't  know  that  I  go  that  far 

100 


QUALITIES    WITHOUT    DEFECTS 

myself/'    ho    said,    and    then    they    laughed    together 
again. 

The  man  who  was  feeding  the  squirrel  seemed  to 
have  exhausted  his  stock  of  peanuts,  and  he  went  away. 
After  some  hesitation  the  squirrel  came  toward  the  two 
friends  and  examined  their  countenances  with  a  beady, 
greedy  eye.  He  was  really  glutted  with  peanuts,  and 
had  buried  the  last  where  he  would  forget  it,  after  hav 
ing  packed  it  down  in  the  ground  with  his  paws. 

"  No,  no,"  the  first  of  the  friends  said  to  the  squirrel ; 
"  we  are  on  the  way  back  to  being  Stoics  and  practising 
the  more  self-denying  virtues.  You  won't  get  any  pea 
nuts  out  of  us.  For  one  thing,  we  haven't  got  any." 

"  There's  a  boy,"  the  second  friend  dreamily  sug 
gested,  "  down  by  the  boat-house  with  a  basketful." 

"  But  I  am  teaching  this  animal  self-denial.  lie 
will  be  a  nobler  squirrel  all  the  rest  of  his  life  for  not 
having  the  peanuts  he  couldn't  get.  That's  like  what 
I  always  try  to  feel  in  my  own  case.  It's  what  I  call 
character-building.  Get  along!" 

The  squirrel,  to  which  the  last  words  were  addressed, 
considered  a  moment.  Then  it  got  along,  after  having 
inspected  the  whittlings  at  the  feet  of  the  friends  to 
decide  whether  they  were  edible. 

"  I  thought,"  the  second  of  the  friends  said,  "  that 
your  humanity  included  kindness  to  animals." 

"  I  am  acting  for  this  animal's  best  good.  I  don't 
say  but  that,  if  the  peanut-boy  had  come  by  with  his 
basket,  I  shouldn't  have  yielded  to  rny  natural  weakness 
and  given  the  little  brute  a  paper  of  them  to  bury.  He 
seems  to  have  been  rather  a  saving  squirrel — when  he 
was  gorged." 

The  mellow  sunlight  of  the  November  day  came 
down  through  the  tattered  foliage,  and  threw  the 
shadows  of  the  friends  on  the  path  where  they  sat 

101 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

with  their  soft  hats  pulled  over  their  foreheads.  They 
were  silent  so  long  that  when  the  second  of  them  resumed 
their  conversation  he  had  to  ask,  "  Where  were  we  ?" 

"  Cultivating  force  of  character  in  squirrels." 

"  I  thought  we  had  got  by  that," 

"  Then  we  had  come  round  to  ourselves  again." 

"  Something  like  that/'  the  first  friend  reluctantly 
allowed. 

"  What  a  vicious  circle !  It  seems  to  me  that  our 
first  duty,  if  that's  what  you  mean,  is  to  get  rid  of 
ourselves." 

"  Whom  should  we  have  left  ?  Other  people  ?  We 
mustn't  pamper  their  egotism  in  chastising  our  own. 
We  must  use  a  great  deal  of  caution  in  doing  our  duty. 
If  I  really  loved  that  squirrel,  if  I  were  truly  kind  to 
animals,  if  I  studied  their  best  good,  as  disagreeable 
friends  say  they  study  ours,  I  should  go  after  him  and 
give  him  a  hickory-nut  that  would  wear  down  his  teeth 
as  nature  intended;  civilization  is  undermining  the 
health  of  squirrels  by  feeding  them  peanuts,  which 
allow  their  teeth  to  overgrow." 

"  That  is  true.  Isn't  it  doing  something  of  the  same 
sort  in  other  ways  for  all  of  us  ?  If  I  hadn't  lost  my 
teeth  so  long  ago,  I'm  sure  I  should  feel  them  piercing 
from  one  jaw  to  another  in  their  inordinate  develop 
ment.  It's  duty  that  keeps  down  the  overgrowths  that 
luxury  incites.  By-the-way,  what  set  you  thinking  so 
severely  about  duty  this  beautiful  Sunday  morning? 
The  neglected  duty  of  going  to  church  ?" 

"  Ah,  I  call  going  to  church  a  pleasure.  No,  I  sup 
pose  it  was  an  effect,  a  reverberation,  of  the  tumult  of 
my  struggle  to  vote  for  the  right  man  on  Tuesday,  when 
I  knew  that  I  was  throwing  my  vote  away  if  I  did  vote 
for  him." 

"  But  you  voted  for  him  ?" 

162 


QUALITIES  WITHOUT  DEFECTS 

The  first  friend  nodded. 

"  Which  man  was  it!" 

"  What's  the  use  ?     He  was  beaten — 

1  That  is  all  you  know  or  need  to  know.' " 

"  Of  course  he  was  beaten  if  it  was  your  duty  to 
vote  for  him,'7  the  second  friend  mused.  "  Fow  patient 
the  Creator  must  be  with  the  result  of  His  counsel  to 
His  creatures !  lie  keeps  on  communing,  commanding, 
if  we  are  to  believe  Kant.  It  is  His  one  certain  way 
to  affirm  and  corroborate  Himself.  Without  His  per 
petual  message  to  the  human  conscience,  He  does  not 
recognizably  exist;  and  yet  more  than  half  the  time 
His  mandate  sends  us  to  certain  defeat,  to  certain  death. 
It's  enough  to  make  one  go  in  for  the  other  side.  Of 
course,  we  have  to  suppose  that  the  same  voice  which 
intimates  duty  to  us  intimates  duty  to  them  ?" 

"  And  that  they  would  like  to  obey  it,  if  they  could 
consistently  with  other  interests  and  obligations  ?" 

"  Yes,  they  juggle  with  their  sense  of  it ;  they  pre 
tend  that  the  Voice  does  not  mean  exactly  what  it  says. 
They  get  out  of  it  that  way." 

"  And  the  great,  vital  difference  between  ourselves 
and  them  is  that  we  promptly  and  explicitly  obey  it; 
we  don't  palter  with  it  in  the  slightest ;  '  we  don't 
bandy  words  with  our  sovereign,'  as  Doctor  Johnson 
said.  I  wonder,"  the  speaker  added,  with  the  briskness 
of  one  to  whom  a  vivid  thought  suddenly  occurs,  "  how 
it  would  work  if  one  went  and  did  exactly  the  contrary 
of  what  was  intimated  to  the  human  conscience  2" 

"  That's  not  a  new  idea.  There  are  people  who 
habitually  do  so,  or,  rather,  to  whom  an  inverted  moral 
law  is  delivered." 

"  You  mean  the  people  wrho  beat  you  at  the  polls 
last  Tuesday  ?" 

163 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  No,  I  mean  the  people  in  the  asylums,  some  of 
them.  They  are  said  to  hear  the  voice  that  bids  us  do 
right  commanding  them  to  do  wrong.  '  Thou  shalt 
kill/  they  hear  it  say,  '  thou  shalt  steal,  thou  shalt 
bear  false  witness,  thou  shalt  commit  adultery,  thou 
shalt  not  honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother/  and  so  on 
through  ths  Decalogue,  with  the  inhibition  thrown  off 
or  put  on,  as  the  case  may  be." 

"How  very  hideous !"  the  second  friend  exclaimed. 
"  It's  like  an  emanation  from  the  Pit.  I  mean  the  Pit 
that  used  to  be.  It's  been  abolished." 

"  And  a  very  good  thing.  The  noises  from  it  went 
far  to  drown  the  voice  of  God,  and  bewildered  some 
men  so  that  they  did  not  rightly  know  what  the  voice 
was  saying.  Now  when  people  hear  a  voice  bidding 
them  do  evil,  we  know  what  to  do  with  them." 

"  And  you  think  that  the  f  ellowrs  who  outvoted  you 
on  Tuesday  heard  the  same  voice  that  you  heard;  and 
they  disobeyed  it  ?" 

"  Ah,  it's  hard  to  say.  We  haven't  got  to  the  bottom 
of  such  things  yet.  Perhaps  they  disobeyed  the  voice 
provisionally,  expecting  to  make  a  satisfactory  explana 
tion  later  on.  Or  perhaps  they  had  put  their  civic 
consciences  in  the  keeping  of  others,  who  gave  them 
an  official  interpretation  of  the  command,  with  in 
structions  not  to  take  it  literally." 

"  That's  very  interesting,"  the  second  friend  said. 
"  Then  it's  your  idea  that  no  one  really  prefers  to  do 
wrong  ?" 

"  Not  outside  of  the  asylums.  And  even  there  they 
can  plead  authority.  No,  no,  no!  In  a  world  pretty 
full  of  evil  there  isn't  any  purely  voluntary  evil  among 
the  sane.  When  the  '  wicked/  as  we  call  them,  do 
wrong,  it  is  provisionally  only;  they  mean  to  do  right 
presently  and  make  it  up  with  the  heavenly  powers. 

164 


QUALITIES    WITHOUT    DEFECTS 

As  long  as  an  evil-door  lives  he  means  to  cease  some 
time  to  do  evil.  lie  may  put  it  off  too  long,  or  until 
lie  becomes  ethically  unsound.  You  know  Swedenborg 
found  that  the  last  state  of  sinners  was  insanity." 

"  Dreadful !" 

"  But  I've  always  thought  very  few  reached  that 
state.  There's  this  curious  thing  about  it  all:  we  are 
not  only  ethically  prompted  by  that  inner  voice,  we  are 
aesthetically  prompted;  it's  a  matter  of  taste  as  well  as 
of  conduct,  too.  The  virtues  are  so  clean,  the  vices  so 
repulsively  dirty.  Justice  is  beautifully  symmetrical ; 
injustice  is  so  shapeless,  so  unbalanced.  Truth  is  such 
a  pure  line;  falsehood  is  so  out  of  drawing.  The 
iniquities  make  you  uncomfortable.  The  arts  denv 
them." 

The  second  friend  drew  a  long  breath.  "  Then  I 
don't  see  why  there  are  so  many." 

"  Well,"  the  first  friend  suggested,  "  there  seems 
to  be  a  difficulty.  Some  say  that  they  have  to  be  em 
ployed  as  antitheses;  we  can't  get  on  without  them,  at 
least  at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings.  Perhaps  we  shall 
advance  so  far  that  we  shall  be  able  to  use  historical 
or  accomplished  evil  for  the  contrasts  by  which  we  shall 
know  actual  good." 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  make  that  out." 

>(  Why,  there  are  already  some  regions  of  the  globe 
where  the  summer  does  not  require  the  antithesis  of 
winter  for  its  consciousness.  Perhaps  in  the  moral 
world  there  will  yet  be  a  condition  in  which  right  shall 
not  need  to  contrast  itself  with  wrong.  We  are  still 
meteorologically  very  imperfect." 

"  And  how  do  you  expect  to  bring  the  condition 
about?  By  our  always  doing  our  duty?" 

"  Well,  we  sha'n't  bv  not  doing  it." 


XVII 

A    WASTED    OPPORTUNITY 

THE  Easy  Chair  saw  at  once  that  its  friend  was 
full  of  improving  conversation,  and  it  let  him  begin 
without  the  least  attempt  to  stay  him ;  anything  of  the 
kind,  in  fact,  would  have  been  a  provocation  to  greater 
circumstance  in  him.  He  said : 

"  It  was  Christmas  Eve,  and  I  don't  know  whether 
he  arrived  by  chance  or  design  at  a  time  when  the  heart 
is  supposed  to  be  softest  and  the  mind  openest.  It's 
a  time  when,  unless  you  look  out,  you  will  believe  any 
thing  people  tell  you  and  do  anything  they  ask  you. 
I  must  say  I  was  prepossessed  by  his  appearance;  he 
was  fair  and  slender,  and  he  looked  about  thirty-five 
years  old ;  and  when  he  said  at  once  that  he  would  not 
deceive  me,  but  would  confess  that  he  was  just  out  of 
the  penitentiary  of  a  neighboring  State  where  he  had 
been  serving  a  two  years'  sentence,  I  could  have  taken 
him  in  my  arms.  Even  if  he  had  not  pretended  that 
he  had  the  same  surname  as  myself,  I  should  have 
known  him  for  a  brother,  and  though  I  suspected  that 
he  was  wrong  in  supposing  that  his  surname  was  at  all 
like  mine,  I  was  glad  that  he  had  sent  it  in,  and  so 
piqued  my  curiosity  that  I  had  him  shown  up,  instead 
of  having  my  pampered  menial  spurn  him  from  my 
door,  as  I  might  if  he  had  said  his  name  was  Brown, 

Jones,  or  Robinson." 

166 


A    WASTED    OPPOKTUNITY 

"  We  dare  say  you  have  your  self-justification,"  we 
put  in  at  this  point,  "  but  you  must  own  that  it  doesn't 
appear  in  what  you  are  saying.  As  a  good  citizen,  with 
the  true  interests  of  the  poor  at  heart,  you  would  cer 
tainly  have  had  your  pampered  menial  spurn  him  from 
your  door.  His  being  of  your  name,  or  claiming  to  be 
so,  had  nothing  to  do  with  his  merit  or  want  of  it." 

"  Oh,  I  acknowledge  that,  and  I'll  own  that  there 
was  something  in  his  case,  as  he  stated  it,  that  appealed 
to  my  fancy  even  more  than  his  community  of  surname 
appealed  to  my  family  affection.  He  said  he  was  a 
Scotchman,  which  I  am  not,  and  that  he  had  got  a  job 
on  a  cattle-steamer,  to  work  his  way  back  to  his  native 
port.  The  steamer  would  sail  on  Monday,  and  it  was 
now  Friday  night,  and  the  question  which  he  hesitated, 
which  he  intimated,  in  terms  so  tacit  that  I  should  not 
call  them  an  expression  of  it,  was  how  he  was  to  live 
till  Monday. 

"  He  left  the  calculation  entirely  to  me,  which  he 
might  not  have  done  if  he  had  known  what  a  poor 
head  I  had  for  figures,  and  I  entered  into  it  with  a 
reluctance  which  he  politely  ignored.  I  had  some  quite 
new  two-dollar  notes  in  my  pocket-book,  the  crisp  sort, 
which  rustle  in  fiction  when  people  take  them  out  to 
succor  the  unfortunate  or  bribe  the  dishonest,  and 
I  thought  I  would  give  him  one  if  I  could  make  it  go 
round  for  him  till  his  steamer  sailed.  I  was  rather 
sorry  for  its  being  fresh,  but  I  had  no  old,  shabby,  or 
dirty  notes  such  as  one  gives  to  cases  of  dire  need,  you 
know." 

"  No,  we  don't  know.  We  so  seldom  give  paper  at 
all ;  we  prefer  to  give  copper." 

"  Well,  that  is  right;  one  ought  to  give  copper  if  the 
need  is  very  pressing;  if  not  so  pressing,  one  gives 
small  silver,  and  so  on  up.  But  here  was  an  instance 

1C7 


IMAGINARY    INTEKVIEWS 

which  involved  a  more  extended  application  of  alms. 
*  You  know,7  I  told  him,  while  I  was  doing  rny  sum  in 
mental  arithmetic,  '  there  are  the  Mills  hotels,  where 
you  can  get  a  bed  for  twenty-five  cents;  I  don't  re 
member  whether  they  throw  in  breakfast  or  not.'  I 
felt  a  certain  squalor  in  my  attitude,  which  was  not 
relieved  by  the  air  of  gentle  patience  with  which  he 
listened,  my  poor  namesake,  if  not  kinsman;  we  were 
both  at  least  sons  of  Adam.  He  looked  not  only  gentle, 
but  refined;  I  made  my  reflection  that  this  was  prob 
ably  the  effect  of  being  shut  up  for  two  years  where  the 
winds  were  not  allowed  to  visit  him  roughly,  and  the 
reflection  strengthened  me  to  say,  '  I  think  two  dollars 
will  tide  you  over  till  Monday.'  I  can't  say  whether 
he  thought  so,  too,  but  he  did  not  say  he  did  not  think 
so.  He  left  it  quite  to  me,  and  I  found  another  mathe 
matical  difficulty.  There  were  three  nights'  lodging 
to  be  paid  for,  and  then  he  would  have  a  dollar  and  a 
quarter  for  food.  I  often  spend  as  much  as  that  on  a 
single  lunch,  including  a  quarter  to  the  waiter,  and  I 
wouldn't  have  liked  making  it  pay  for  three  days' 
board.  But  I  didn't  say  so ;  I  left  the  question  entirely 
to  him,  and  he  said  nothing. 

"  In  fact,  he  was  engaged  in  searching  himself  for 
credentials,  first  in  one  pocket,  and  then  in  another; 
but  he  found  nothing  better  than  a  pawn-ticket,  which 
he  offered  me.  '  What's  this  ?'  I  asked.  '  My  overcoat/ 
he  said,  and  I  noted  that  he  had  borrowed  a  dollar  and 
a  half  on  it.  I  did  not  like  that ;  it  seemed  to  me  that 
he  was  taking  unfair  advantage  of  me,  and  I  said,  '  Oh, 
I  think  you  can  get  along  without  your  overcoat.'  I'm 
glad  to  think  now  that  it  hadn't  begun  to  snow  yet,  and 
that  I  had  no  prescience  of  the  blizzard — what  the  pa 
pers  fondly  called  the  Baby  Blizzard  (such  a  pretty 
fancy  of  theirs!) — which  was  to  begin  the  next  after- 

168 


A    WASTED    OPPORTUNITY 

noon,  wasn't  making  the  faintest  threat  from  the  moon 
lit  sky  then.  He  said,  '  It's  rather  cold/  but  I  ignored 
his  position.  At  the  same  time,  I  gave  him  a  quarter." 
6  That  was  magnificent,  but  it  was  not  political 
economy,"  we  commented.  "You  should  have  held 
to  your  irrefutable  argument  that  he  could  get  along 
without  his  overcoat.  You  should  have  told  him  that 
he  would  not  need  it  on  shipboard." 

''  Well,^  do  you  know,"  our  friend  said,  "  I  really 
did  tell  him  something  like  that,  and  it  didn't  seem  to 
convince  him,  though  it  made  me  ashamed.  I  suppose 
I  was  thinking  how  he  could  keep  close  to  the  reading- 
room  fire,  and  I  did  not  trouble  to  realize  that  he  would 
not  be  asked  to  draw  up  his  chair  when  he  came  in  from 
looking  after  the  cattle." 

"  It  would  have  been  an  idle  compliment,  anyway," 
we  said.  "  You  can't  draw  up  the  reading-room  chairs 
on  shipboard ;  they're  riveted  down." 

"I  remembered  afterward.  But  still  I  was  deter 
mined  not  to  take  his  overcoat  out  of  pawn,  and  he 
must  have  seen  it  in  my  eye.  He  put  back  his  pawn- 
ticket,  and  did  not  try  to  produce  any  other  credentials. 
I  had^noticed  that  the  ticket  did  not  bear  the  surname 
we  enjoyed  in  common ;  I  said  to  myself  that  the  name 
of  Smith,  which  it  did  bear,  must  be  the  euphemism 
of  many  who  didn't  wish  to  identify  themselves  with 
their  poverty  even  to  a  pawnbroker.  But  I  said  to  him, 
'  Here!'  and  I  pulled  open  my  table  drawer,  and  took 
from  it  a  small  envelope  full  of  English  coins,  which 
I  had  been  left  stranded  with  on  several  returns  from 
Europe;  the  inhuman  stewards  had  failed  to  relieve 
me  of  them;  and  as  I  always  vow,  when  I  have  got 
through  our  customs,  that  I  will  never  go  to  Europe 
again,  I  had  often  wondered  what  T  should  do  with 
those  coins.  I  now  took  out  the  largest  and  handsomest 
12  169 


IMAGINARY    INTEEVIEWS 

of  them :  '  Do  you  know  what  that  is  ?'  '  Yes/  he 
said ;  '  it's  two  shillings  and  sixpence — what  we  call  a 
half-crown.'  His  promptness  restored  my  faith  in  him ; 
I  saw  that  he  must  be  what  he  said;  undoubtedly  he 
had  been  in  the  penitentiary ;  very  likely  our  name  was 
the  same;  an  emotion  of  kinship  stirred  in  my  heart. 
6  Here  !'  I  said,  and  I  handed  him  the  coin ;  it  did  not 
seem  so  bad  as  giving  him  more  American  money. 
6  They  can  change  that  on  the  ship  for  you.  I  guess 
you  can  manage  now  till  Monday,'  and  my  confidence 
in  Providence  diffused  such  a  genial  warmth  through 
my  steam-heated  apartment  that  I  forgot  all  about  his 
overcoat.  I  wish  I  could  forget  about  it  now." 

We  felt  that  we  ought  to  say  something  to  comfort 
a  man  who  owned  his  excess  of  beneficence.  "  Oh,  you 
mustn't  mind  giving  him  so  much  money.  We  can't 
always  remember  our  duty  to  cut  the  unfortunate  as 
close  as  we  ought.  Another  time  you  will  do  better. 
Come !  Cheer  up !" 

Our  friend  did  not  seem  entirely  consoled  by  our 
amiability.  In  fact,  he  seemed  not  to  notice  it.  He 
heaved  a  great  sigh  in  resuming:  "He  appeared  to 
think  I  was  hinting  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  go, 
for  he  got  up  from  the  lounge  where  I  had  thought 
lessly  had  the  decency  to  make  him  sit  down,  and  went 
out  into  the  hall,  thanking  me  as  I  followed  him  to  the 
door.  I  was  sorry  to  let  him  go ;  he  had  interested  me 
somehow  beyond  anything  particularly  appealing  in  his 
personality;  in  fact,  his  personality  was  rather  null 
than  otherwise,  as  far  as  that  asserted  any  claim;  such 
a  mere  man  and  brother !  Before  he  put  his  hand  on 
my  door-knob  a  belated  curiosity  stirred  in  me,  which 
I  tried,  as  delicately  as  I  could,  to  appease.  '  Was  your 
trouble  something  about  the ' — I  was  going  to  say  the 
ladies,  but  that  seemed  too  mawkish,  and  I  boldly 

170 


A    WASTED    OPPOKTUNITY 

outed  with — '  women V  i  Oh  no,'  he  said,  meekly;  '  it 
was  just  cloth,  a  piece  of  cloth.'  *  Breaking  and  enter 
ing  ?'  I  led  on.  k  Well,  not  exactly,  but — it  came  to 
grand  larceny/  and  I  might  have  fancied  a  touch  of 
mounting  self-respect  in  his  confession  of  a  consider 
able  offence. 

"  I  didn't  know  exactly  what  to  say,  so  I  let  myself 
off  with  a  little  philosophy:  '  Well,  you  see,  it  didn't 
pay,  exactly.'  '  Oh  no,'  he  said,  sadly  enough,  and  he 
went  out." 

Our  friend  was  silent  at  this  point,  and  we  felt  that 
we  ought  to  improve  the  occasion  in  his  behalf.  "  Well, 
there  you  lost  a  great  opportunity.  You  ought  to  have 
rubbed  it  in.  You  ought  to  have  made  him  reflect  upon 
the  utter  folly  of  his  crime.  You  ought  to  have  made 
him  realize  that  for  a  ridiculous  value  of  forty,  or  fifty, 
or  seventy-five  dollars,  he  had  risked  the  loss  of  his 
liberty  for  two  years,  and  not  only  his  liberty,  but  his 
labor,  for  he  had  come  out  of  the  penitentiary  after 
two  years  of  hard  work  as  destitute  as  he  went  in ;  he 
had  not  even  the  piece  of  cloth  to  show  for  it  all.  Yes, 
you  lost  a  great  opportunity." 

Our  friend  rose  from  the  dejected  posture  in  which 
he  had  been  sitting,  and  blazed  out — we  have  no  milder 
word  for  it — blazed  out  in  a  sort  of  fiery  torrent  which 
made  us  recoil :  "  Yes,  I  lost  that  great  opportunity, 
and  I  lost  a  greater  still.  I  lost  the  opportunity  of 
telling  that  miserable  man  that,  thief  for  thief,  and 
robber  for  robber,  the  State  which  had  imprisoned  him 
for  two  years,  and  then  cast  him  out  again  without  a 
cent  of  pay  for  the  wages  he  had  been  earning  all  that 
dreadful  time,  was  a  worse  thief  and  a  worse  robber 
than  he!  I  ought  to  have  told  him  that  in  so  far  as 
he  had  been  cheated  of  his  wasres  by  the  law  ho  was 
the  victim,  the  martyr  of  an  atrocious  survival  of  bar- 

171 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

barism.  Oh,  I  have  thought  of  it  since  with  shame  and 
sorrow !  I  was  sending  him  out  into  the  cold  that  was 
gathering  for  the  Baby  Blizzard  without  the  hope  of 
his  overcoat,  but  since  then  I  have  comforted  myself 
by  considering  how  small  my  crime  was  compared  with 
that  of  the  State  which  had  thrown  him  destitute  upon 
the  world  after  the  two  years'  labor  it  had  stolen  from 
him.  At  the  lowest  rate  of  wages  for  unskilled  labor, 
it  owed  him  at  least  a  thousand  dollars,  or,  with  half 
subtracted  for  board  and  lodging,  five  hundred.  It 
was  his  delinquent  debtor  in  that  sum,  and  it  had 
let  him  loose  to  prey  upon  society  in  my  person  be 
cause  it  had  defrauded  him  of  the  money  he  had 
earned." 

"  But,  our  dear  friend !"  we  entreated,  "  don't  you 
realize  that  this  theft,  this  robbery,  this  fraud,  as  you 
call  it,  was  part  of  the  sanative  punishment  which  the 
State  had  inflicted  upon  him  f 

"  And  you  don't  think  two  years'  prison,  two  years' 
slavery,  was  sanative  enough  without  the  denial  of  his 
just  compensation  ?" 

We  perceived  that  it  would  be  useless  to  argue  with 
a  man  in  this  truculent  mood,  and  we  silently  forbore 
to  urge  that  the  vision  of  destitution  which  the  crim 
inal  must  have  before  his  eyes,  advancing  hand  in  hand 
with  liberty  to  meet  him  at  the  end  of  his  term  when 
his  prison  gates  opened  into  the  world  which  would 
not  feed,  or  shelter,  or  clothe,  or  in  any  wise  employ 
him,  would  be  a  powerful  deterrent  from  future  crime, 
and  act  as  one  of  the  most  efficient  agencies  of  virtue 
which  the  ingenuity  of  the  law  has  ever  invented.  But 
our  silence  did  not  wholly  avail  us,  for  our  poor  mis 
guided  friend  went  on  to  say: 

"  Suppose  he  had  a  wife  and  children — he  may  have 
had  several  of  both,  for  all  I  know — dependent  on  him, 

172 


A    WASTED    OPPORTUNITY 

would  it  have  been  particularly  sanative  for  them  to  be 
deprived  of  his  earnings,  too?" 

"  We  cannot  answer  these  sophistries,"  we  were  ex 
asperated  into  replying.  "  All  that  we  can  say  is  that 
anything  else — anything  like  what  you  call  justice  to 
the  criminal,  the  prisoner — would  disrupt  society,"  and 
we  felt  that  disrupt  was  a  word  which  must  carry  con 
viction  to  the  densest  understanding.  It  really  ap 
peared  to  do  so  in  this  case,  for  our  friend  went  away 
without  more  words,  leaving  behind  him  a  manuscript, 
which  we  mentally  rejected,  while  seeing  our  way  to 
use  the  material  in  it  for  the  present  essay;  it  is  the 
well-known  custom  of  editors  to  employ  in  this  way  the 
ideas  of  rejected  contributors. 

A  few  days  later  we  met  our  friend,  and  as  we 
strolled  beside  him  in  the  maniacal  hubbub  of  the  New 
York  streets,  so  favorable  to  philosophic  communion, 
we  said,  "  Well,  have  you  met  your  namesake  since 
you  came  to  his  rescue  against  the  robber  State,  or  did 
he  really  sail  on  the  cattle-steamer,  as  he  said  he  was 
going  to  do  ?" 

Our  friend  gave  a  vague,  embarrassed  laugh.  "  He 
didn't  sail,  exactly,  at  least  not  on  that  particular 
steamer.  The  fact  is,  I  have  just  parted  from  him 
at  my  own  door — the  outside  of  it.  It  appears  that 
the  authorities  of  that  particular  line  wished  to  take 
advantage  of  him  by  requiring  him  to  pay  down  a  sum 
of  money  as  a  guarantee  of  good  faith,  and  that  he  re 
fused  to  do  so — not  having  the  money,  for  one  reason. 
I  did  not  understand  the  situation  exactly,  but  this 
was  not  essential  to  his  purpose,  which  made  itself 
evident  through  a  good  deal  of  irrelevant  discourse. 
Since  I  had  seen  him,  society  had  emulated  the  State 
in  the  practice  of  a  truly  sanative  attitude  toward  him. 
At  the  place  where  he  went  to  have  his  half  -  crown 

173 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

changed  into  American  money  they  would  only  give 
him  forty  cents  for  it,  but  he  was  afterward  assured 
by  an  acquaintance  that  the  current  rate  was  sixty 
cents.  In  fact,  a  half-crown  is  worth  a  little  more." 

"  Well,  what  can  you  expect  of  money-changers  f 
we  returned,  consolingly.  "  And  what  is  going  to  be 
come  of  your  unhappy  beneficiary  now  ?" 

"  Why,  according  to  his  report,  fortune  has  smiled, 
or  half-smiled,  as  the  novelists  say,  upon  him.  He  has 
found  a  berth  on  another  line  of  cattle-steamers,  where 
they  don't  require  a  deposit  as  a  guarantee  of  good 
faith.  In  fact,  the  head  steward  has  taken  a  liking 
to  him,  and  he  is  going  out  as  one  of  the  table-stewards 
instead  of  one  of  the  herdsmen ;  I'm  not  sure  that  herds 
men  is  what  they  call  them." 

We  laughed  sardonically.  "  And  do  you  believe  he 
is  really  going?" 

Our  friend  sighed  heavily.  "Well,  I  don't  believe 
he's  coming  back.  I  only  gave  him  the  loose  change 
I  had  in  my  pocket,  and  I  don't  think  it  will  support 
him  so  handsomely  to  the  end  of  the  week  that  he  will 
wish  to  call  upon  me  for  more." 

We  were  both  silent,  just  as  the  characters  are  in  a 
novel  till  the  author  can  think  what  to  make  them  say 
next.  Then  we  asked,  "  And  you  still  think  he  had 
been  in  the  penitentiary  ?" 

"  I  don't  see  why  he  should  have  said  so  if  he  wasn't." 

"  Well,  then,"  we  retorted  bitterly,  again  like  a 
character  in  fiction,  "  you  have  lost  another  great  op 
portunity:  not  a  moral  opportunity  this  time,  but  an 
aesthetic  opportunity.  You  could  have  got  him  to  tell 
you  all  about  his  life  in  prison,  and  perhaps  his  whole 
career  leading  up  to  it,  and  you  could  have  made  some 
thing  interesting  of  it.  You  might  have  written  a  pica 
resque  novel  or  a  picaresque  short  story,  anyway." 

174 


A    WASTED    OPPORTUNITY 

Our  friend  allowed,  with  a  mortified  air,  "  It  was 
rather  a  break." 

"  You  threw  away  the  chance  of  a  lifetime.  Name 
sakes  who  have  been  in  jail  don't  turn  up  every  day. 
In  his  intimate  relation  to  you,  he  would  have  opened 
up,  he  would  have  poured  out  his  whole  heart  to  you. 
Think  of  the  material  you  have  lost." 

We  thought  of  it  ourselves,  and  with  mounting  ex 
asperation.  When  we  reflected  that  he  would  probably 
have  put  it  into  his  paper,  and  when  we  reflected  that 
we  could  have  given  so  much  more  color  to  our  essay, 
we  could  not  endure  it.  "  Well,  good-day,"  we  said, 
coldly ;  "  we  are  going  down  this  way." 

Our  friend  shook  hands,  lingeringly,  absently.  Then 
he  came  to  himself  with  a  mocking  laugh.  "  Well, 
perhaps  he  wasn't,  after  all,  what  he  said." 


XVIII 
A    NIECE'S    LITERARY   ADVICE    TO    HER    UNCLE 

A  VETEKAN  NOVELIST,  who  was  also  an  intimate 
friend  of  the  Easy  Chair's,  sat  before  his  desk  pensively 
supporting  his  cheek  in  his  left  hand  while  his  right 
toyed  with  the  pen  from  which,  for  the  moment  at 
least,  fiction  refused  to  flow.  His  great -niece,  who 
seemed  such  a  contradiction  in  terms,  being  as  little  and 
vivid  personally  as  she  was  nominally  large  and  stately, 
opened  the  door  and  advanced  upon  him. 

"  Do  I  disturb  you,  uncle  ?"  she  asked ;  she  did  not 
call  him  great-uncle,  because  that,  she  rightly  said,  was 
ridiculous;  and  now,  as  part  of  the  informality,  she 
went  on  without  waiting  for  him  to  answer,  "  Because, 
you  know,  you  wanted  me  to  tell  you  what  I  thought 
of  your  last  story ;  and  I've  just  read  it." 

"  Oh  yes !"  the  Veteran  Novelist  assented  brightly, 
hiding  his  struggle  to  recall  which  storv  it  was. 
"  Well  ?" 

"  Well,"  she  said,  firmly  but  kindly,  "  you  want  me 
to  be  frank  with  you,  don't  you  ?" 

"  By  all  means,  my  dear.  It's  very  good  of  you  to 
read  my  story."  By  this  time,  he  had,  with  the  help 
of  the  rather  lean  volume  into  which  his  publishers 
had  expanded  a  long-short  story,  and  which  she  now 
held  intensely  clasped  to  her  breast,  really  remembered. 

"!Nbt  at  all!"  she  said.  She  sat  down  very  elas- 

170 


A    NIECE'S    LITERARY    ADVICE 

ticnlly  in  the  chair  on  the  other  side  of  his  desk,  and 
as  she  talked  she  accented  each  of  her  emotions  by  a 
spring  from  the  cushioned  seat.  "  In  the  first  place," 
she  said,  with  the  effect  of  coming  directly  to  business, 
"  I  suppose  you  know  yourself  that  it  couldn't  be  called 
virile." 

"  No  ?"  he  returned.     "  What  is  virile  ?" 

"  Well,  I  can't  explain,  precisely ;  but  it's  some 
thing  that  all  the  critics  say  of  a  book  that  is  very 
strong,  don't  you  know ;  and  masterful ;  and  relentless ; 
and  makes  you  feel  as  if  somebody  had  taken  you 
by  the  throat;  and  shakes  you  up  awfully;  and 
seems  to  throw  you  into  the  air,  and  trample  you  under 
foot." 

"  Good  heavens,  my  dear !"  the  Veteran  Novelist  ex 
claimed.  "  I  hope  I'm  a  gentleman,  even  when  I'm 
writing  a  novel." 

"  Your  being  a  gentleman  has  nothing  to  do  with 
it,  uncle!"  she  said,  severely,  for  she  thought  she  per 
ceived  a  disposition  in  the  Veteran  Novelist  to  shuffle. 
"  You  can't  be  virile  and  at  the  same  time  remember 
that  VQU  are  a  gentleman.  Lots  of  women  write  virile 
books." 

"  Ladies  ?"  the  novelist  asked. 

"  Don't  r  say  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  it  ?  If 
you  wish  to  grip  the  reader's  attention  you  must  let 
yourself  go,  whether  you're  a  gentleman  or  a  lady.  Of 
course,"  she  relented,  "  your  book's  very  idyllic,  and 
delightful,  and  all  that;  but,"  she  resumed,  severely, 
"  do  you  think  an  honest  critic  could  say  there  was  not 
a  dull  page  in  it  from  cover  to  cover?" 

The  novelist  sighed.  "  I'm  sure  I  don't  know.  They 
seem  to  say  it — in  the  passages  quoted  in  the  advertise 
ments — of  all  the  books  published.  Except  mine,"  he 
added,  sadly. 

177 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  Well,  we  will  pass  that  point/'  his  great-niece  re 
lented  again.  "  I  didn't  intend  to  wound  your  feelings, 
uncle." 

"  Oh,  you  haven't.  I  suppose  I  am  a  little  too  easy 
going  at  times." 

"  Yes,  that  is  it.  One  can't  say  dull ;  but  too  easy 
going.  No  faithful  critic  could  begin  a  notice  of  your 
book  with  such  a  passage  as :  '  Have  you  read  it  ?  No  ? 
Then  hop,  skip,  and  jump,  and  get  it.  Don't  wait  to 
find  your  hat  or  drink  your  coffee.  March !  It's  going 
like  the  wind,  and  you  must  kite  if  you  want  one  of 
the  first  edition  of  fifty  thousand!'  Now  that,"  his 
great-niece  ended,  fondly,  "  is  what  I  should  like  every 
critic  to  say  of  your  book,  uncle." 

The  Veteran  Novelist  reflected  for  a  moment.  Then 
he  said,  more  spiritedly,  "  I  don't  believe  I  should,  my 
dear." 

"Then  you  must;  that's  all.  But  that's  a  small 
thing.  What  I  really  wonder  at  is  that,  with  all  your 
experience,  you  are  not  more  of  a  stylist." 

"Stylist?" 

"  Yes.  I  don't  believe  there's  an  epigram  ir  your 
book  from  beginning  to  end.  That's  the  reason  the 
critics  don't  quote  any  brilliant  sentences  from  it,  and 
the  publishers  can't  advertise  it  properly.  It  makes 
me  mad  to  find  the  girls  repeating  other  authors'  say 
ings,  and  I  never  catch  a  word  from  a  book  of  yours, 
though  you've  been  writing  more  than  a  century." 

"Not  quite  so  long,  my  dear,  I  think;  though  very, 
very  long.  But  just  what  do  you  mean  by  style?" 

"  Well,  you  ought  to  say  even  the  simplest  things  in 
a  distinguished  way;  and  here,  all  through,  I  find  you 
saying  the  most  distinguished  things  in  the  simplest 
way.  But  I  won't  worry  you  about  things  that  are 
not  vital.  I'll  allow,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 

178 


A    NIECE'S    L1TEKAKY    ADVICE 

you  can't  have  virility  if  you  remember  that  you  are 
a  gentleman  even  when  you  are  writing  fiction.  But 
you  can  have  passion.  Why  don't  you  f 

"Don't  I?    Ithought- 

"  Not  a  speck  of  it — not  a  single  speck !  It's  rather 
a  delicate  point,  and  I  don't  exactly  know  how  to  put 
it,  but,  if  you  want  me  to  be  frank,  I  must."  She  looked 
at  her  great-uncle,  and  he  nodded  encouragement.  "  I 
don't  believe  there's  a  single  place  where  he  crushes  her 
to  his  heart,  or  presses  his  lips  to  hers  in  a  long  kiss. 
He  kisses  her  cheek  once,  but  I  don't  call  that  anything. 
Why,  in  lots  of  the  books,  nowadays,  the  girls  them 
selves  cling  to  the  men  in  a  close  embrace,  or  put  their 
mouths  tenderly  to  theirs —  Well,  of  course,  it  sounds 
rather  disgusting,  but  in  your  own  earlier  books,  I'm 
sure  there's  more  of  it  —  of  passion.  Isn't  there  ? 
Think!" 

The  Veteran  Novelist  tried  to  think.  "  To  tell  you 
the  truth,  my  dear,  I  can't  remember.  I  hope  there 
was,  and  there  always  will  be,  love,  and  true  love,  in 
my  novels — the  kind  that  sometimes  ends  in  happy 
marriage,  but  is  always  rather  shy  of  showing  itself  off 
to  the  reader  in  caresses  of  any  kind.  I  think  passion 
can  be  intimated,  and  is  better  so  than  brutally  stated. 
If  you  have  a  lot  of  hugging  and  kissing — ' 

"Uncle!" 

"  — How  are  your  lovers  different  from  those  poor 
things  in  the  Park  that  make  you  ashamed  as  you  pass 
them  1" 

"  The  police  ought  to  put  a  stop  to  it.  They  arc 
perfectly  disgraceful !" 

"  And  they  ought  to  put  a  stop  to  it  in  the  novels. 
It's  not  only  indecent,  but  it's  highly  insanitary.  Nice 
people  don't  want  you  to  kiss  their  children,  nowadays, 
and  yet  they  expect  us  novelists  to  supply  them  with 

179 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

passion  of  the  most  demonstrative  sort  in  our  fiction. 
Among  the  Japanese,  who  are  now  one  of  the  great 
world-powers,  kissing  is  quite  unknown  in  real  life.  I 
don't  know  the  Japanese  fiction  very  well,  but  I  doubt 
whether  there's  a  single  kiss,  or  double,  in  it.  I  believe 
that  a  novel  full  of  intense  passion  could  be  written 
without  the  help  of  one  embrace  from  beginning  to  end." 

"  Uncle !"  the  girl  vividly  exclaimed,  "  why  don't 
you  do  it?  It  would  be  the  greatest  success!  Just 
give  them  the  wink,  somehow,  at  the  start — just  hint- 
that  there  was  the  greatest  kind  of  passion  going  on 
all  the  time  and  never  once  showing  itself,  and  the 
girls  would  be  raving  about  it.  Why  don't  you  do  it, 
uncle  ?  You  know  I  do  so  want  you,  for  once,  to  write 
the  most  popular  book  of  the  month !" 

"  I  want  to  do  it  myself,  my  dear.  But  as  to  my 
writing  a  book  full  of  suppressed  passion,  that's  a  story 
in  itself." 

"  Tell  it!"  she  entreated. 

"  The  Easy  Chair  wouldn't  give  me  room  for  it. 
But  I'll  tell  you  something  else.  When  I  was  a  boy 
I  had  a  knack  at  versing,  which  came  rather  in  an 
ticipation  of  the  subjects  to  use  it  on.  I  exhausted 
Spring  and  Morning  and  Snow  and  Memory,  and  the 
whole  range  of  mythological  topics,  and  then  I  had 
my  knack  lying  idle.  I  observed  that  there  was  one 
subject  that  the  other  poets  found  inexhaustible,  but 
somehow  I  felt  myself  disqualified  for  treating  it. 
How  could  I  sing  of  Love  when  I  had  never  been  in 
love?  For  I  didn't  count  those  youthful  affairs  when 
I  was  only  in  the  Third  Reader  and  the  first  part  of  the 
Arithmetic.  I  went  about  trying  to  be  in  love,  as  a 
matter  of  business;  but  I  couldn't  manage  it.  Sud 
denly  it  managed  itself;  and  then  I  found  myself 
worse  disqualified  than  ever.  I  didn't  want  to  mention 

180 


A    NIECE'S    LITERARY    ADVICE 

it;  cither  to  myself  or  to  her,  much  less  to  the  world  at 
large.  It  seemed  a  little  too  personal." 

"  Oh,  uncle !    IIow  funny  you  are !" 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  I  didn't  think  it  much  fun  then, 
and  I  don't  now.  Once  I  didn't  know  what  love  was, 
and  now  I've  forgotten!" 

"  No  such  thing,  uncle !  You  write  about  it  beauti 
fully,  even  if  you're  not  very  virile  or  epigrammatic 
or  passionate.  I  won't  let  you  say  so." 

"  Well,  then,  my  dear,  if  I  haven't  forgotten,  I'm 
not  interested.  You  see,  I  know  so  much  more  about  it 
than  my  lovers  do.  I  can't  take  their  point  of  view  any 
longer.  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  don't  care  a  rap 
whether  they  get  married  or  not.  In  that  story  there, 
that  you've  been  reading,  I  got  awfully  tired  of  the 
girl.  She  was  such  a  fool,  and  the  fellow  was  a  perfect 
donkey." 

"  But  he  was  the  dearest  donkey  in  the  world !  I 
wanted  to  h — shake  hands  with  him,  and  I  wanted  to 
kiss — yes,  kiss ! — lier,  she  was  such  a  lovable  fool." 

"  You're  very  kind  to  say  so,  my  dear,  but  you  can't 
keep  on  making  delightful  idiots  go  down  with  the  pub 
lic.  That  was  what  I  was  thinking  when  you  came  in 
and  found  me  looking  so  dismal.  I  had  stopped  in  the 
middle  of  a  most  exciting  scene  because  I  had  dis 
covered  that  I  was  poking  fun  at  my  lovers." 

"  And  here  I,"  the  girl  lamented,  "  didn't  take  the 
slightest  notice,  but  began  on  you  with  the  harshest 
criticisms !" 

"  I  didn't  mind.     I  dare  say  it  was  for  my  good." 

"  I'm  sure  I  meant  it  so,  uncle.  And  what  are  you 
going  to  do  about  it?" 

"  Well,  I  must  get  a  new  point  of  view." 

"Yes?" 

"  I  must  change  my  ground  altogether.     I  can't  pre- 
181 


IMAGINAKY    INTERVIEWS 

tend  any  longer  to  be  the  contemporary  of  my  lovers, 
or  to  have  the  least  sympathy  with  their  hopes  and 
fears.  If  I  were  to  be  perfectly  honest  with  them,  I 
should  tell  them,  perhaps,  that  disappointed  love  was 
the  best  thing  that  could  happen  to  either  of  them,  but, 
if  they  insisted  on  happiness,  that  a  good  broken  en 
gagement  promised  more  of  it  than  anything  else  I 
could  think  of." 

"  That  is  true,"  the  girl  sighed.  "  There  are  a  great 
many  unhappy  marriages.  Of  course,  people  would 
say  it  was  rather  pessimistic,  wouldn't  they  ?" 

"  People  will  say  anything.  One  mustn't  mind  them. 
But  now  I'll  tell  you  what  I've  been  thinking  all  the 
time  we've  been  talking." 

"  Well  ?  I  knew  you  were  not  thinking  of  my  non 
sense  !" 

"  It  was  very  good  nonsense,  as  nonsense  goes,  my 
dear.  What  I've  been  thinking  is  that  I  must  still  have 
the  love  interest  in  my  books,  and  have  it  the  main  in 
terest,  but  I  must  treat  it  from  the  vantage-ground  of 
age ;  it  must  be  something  I  look  back  upon,  and  a  little 
down  upon/' 

"  I  see  what  you  mean,"  the  girl  dissentingly  as 
sented. 

"  I  must  be  in  the  whole  secret  —  the  secret,  not 
merely  of  my  lovers'  love,  but  the  secret  of  love  itself. 
I  must  know,  and  I  must  subtly  intimate,  that  it  doesn't 
really  matter  to  anybody  how  their  affair  turns  out; 
for  in  a  few  years,  twenty  or  thirty  years,  it's  a  thou 
sand  to  one  that  they  won't  care  anything  about  it 
themselves.  I  must  maintain  the  attitude  of  the  sage, 
dealing  not  unkindly  but  truthfully  with  the  situation." 

"  It  would  be  rather  sad,"  the  girl  murmured.  "  But 
one  likes  sad  things." 

"  When  one  is  young,  one  does ;  when  one  is  old,  one 

182 


A    NIECE'S    LITKBABY    ADVICE 

likes  true  things.  But,  of  course,  my  love-stories  would 
be  only  for  those  who  have  outlived  love.  I  ought  to 
be  fair  with  my  readers,  and  forewarn  them  that  my 
story  was  not  for  the  young,  the  hopeful,  the  happy." 

The  girl  jumped  to  her  feet  and  stood  magnificent. 
"  Uncle !  It's  grand !" 

He  rose,  too.    "  What  is  ?"  he  faltered. 

"  The  idea !  Don't  you  see  ?  You  can  have  the  pub 
lisher  announce  it  as  a  story  for  the  disillusioned,  the 
wretched,  and  the  despairing,  and  that  would  make 
every  girl  want  it,  for  that's  what  every  girl  thinks  she 
is,  and  they  would  talk  to  the  men  about  it,  and  then 
tlicy  would  want  it,  and  it  would  be  the  book  of  the 
month !  Don't  say  another  word.  Oh,  you  dear !"  In 
spite  of  the  insanitary  nature  of  the  action,  she  caught 
her  uncle  round  the  neck,  and  kissed  him  on  his  bald 
spot,  and  ran  out  of  the  room.  She  opened  the  door  to 
call  back:  "Don't  lose  a  single  minute.  Begin  it 
now  /" 

But  the  Veteran  Novelist  sank  again  into  his  chair  in 
the  posture  in  which  she  had  surprised  him. 


XIX 

A    SEARCH    FOR    CELEBRITY 

WE  lately  received  a  publication  which  has  inter 
ested  us  somewhat  out  of  proportion  to  its  size.  It 
is  called  The  Way  into  Print,  but  it  does  not  treat, 
as  the  reader  might  rashly  suppose,  of  the  best  method 
of  getting  your  name  into  the  newspapers,  either  as  a 
lady  who  is  giving  a  dinner  to  thirteen  otherwise  un 
known  persons,  or  is  making  a  coming-out  tea  for  her 
debutante  daughter,  or  had  a  box  full  of  expensively 
confectioned  friends  at  the  opera  or  the  vaudeville,  or 
is  going  to  read  a  paper  at  a  woman's  club,  or  is  in 
any  sort  figuring  in  the  thousand  and  one  modern 
phases  of  publicity;  it  does  not  even  advise  her  guests 
or  hearers  how  to  appear  among  those  present,  or  those 
who  were  invited  and  did  not  come,  or  those  who  would 
not  have  come  if  they  had  been  invited.  Its  scope  is 
far  more  restricted,  yet  its  plane  is  infinitely  higher, 
its  reach  incomparably  further.  The  Print  which  it 
proposes  to  lead  the  Way  into  is  that  print  where  the 
elect,  who  were  once  few  and  are  now  many,  are  mak 
ing  the  corridors  of  time  resound  to  their  footsteps,  as 
poets,  essayists,  humorists,  or  other  literary  forms  of 
immortality.  Their  procession,  which  from  the  point 
of  the  impartial  spectator  has  been  looking  more  and 
more  like  a  cake-walk  in  these  later  years,  is  so  in 
creasingly  the  attraction  of  young-eyed  ambition  that 

184 


A    SEARCH    FOR    CELEBRITY 

nothing  interests  a  very  large  class  of  people  more  than 
advice  for  the  means  of  joining  it,  and  it  is  this  advice 
which  the  publication  in  point  supplies:  supplies,  we 
must  say,  with  as  much  good  sense  and  good  feeling 
as  is  consistent  with  an  office  which  does  not  seem  so 
dignified  as  we  could  wish. 

Inevitably  the  adviser  must  now  and  then  stoop  to 
the  folly  of  the  aspirant,  inevitably  he  must  use  that 
folly  from  time  to  time  with  wholesome  severity,  but 
he  does  not  feel  himself  equal  to  the  work  unaided. 
Our  sudden  national  expansion,  through  the  irresistible 
force  of  our  imaginative  work,  into  an  intellectual 
world-power  has  thrust  a  responsibility  upon  the  vet 
erans  of  a  simpler  time  which  they  may  not  shirk,  and 
the  author  of  The  Way  into  Print  calls  upon  them 
to  share  his  task.  He  is  not  satisfied  with  the  inter 
esting  chapters  contributed  by  younger  authors  who  arc 
in  the  act  of  winning  their  spurs,  but  he  appeals  to 
those  established  in  the  public  recognition  to  do  their 
part  in  aiding  us  to  hold  our  conquest  through  the  in 
struction  and  discipline  of  those  who  must  take  their 
places  when  they  put  their  armor  off.  He  does  this 
by  means  of  a  letter,  almost  an  open  letter,  addressed 
personally  to  each  veteran  by  means  of  the  substitution 
of  his  typewritten  name  for  that  of  some  other  veteran, 
but  not  differenced  in  the  terms  of  the  ensuing  appeal 
to  his  kindness  or  his  conscience.  He  puts  himself 
upon  a  broad  humanitarian  ground,  and  asks  that  the 
typewritten  author,  who,  he  assumes,  is  "  prominently 
before  the  public,"  shall  answer  certain  questions  to 
which  the  appellant  owns  that  he  has  already  received 
hundreds  of  replies. 

By  an  odd  mischance  one  of  his  half-open  letters 
found  its  way  to  the  Easy  Chair,  and,  although  that 
judgment-seat  felt  relieved  from  the  sense  of  anything 

13  185 


IMAGINARY    INTEEVIEWS 

like  a  lonely  prominence  before  the  public  by  the  very 
multitude  of  those  similarly  consulted,  it  did  not  re 
main  as  Easy  as  it  would  have  liked  under  the  erring 
attribution  of  prominence.  Yet  to  have  refused  to  help 
in  so  good  a  work  would  not  have  been  in  its  nature, 
and  it  lost  as  little  time  as  possible  in  summoning  a 
real  author  of  prominence  to  consider  the  problems  so 
baffling  to  a  mere  editorial  effigy;  for,  as  we  ought  to 
explain,  the  de  facto  editor  is  to  be  found  in  the  Study 
next  door,  and  never  in  the  Easy  Chair.  The  author 
prominently  before  the  public  came  at  once,  for  that 
kind  of  author  has  very  little  to  do,  and  is  only  too 
happy  to  respond  to  calls  like  that  of  the  friend  of 
rising  authorship.  Most  of  his  time  is  spent  at  sym 
posiums,  imagined  by  the  Sunday  editions  of  the  news 
papers,  to  consider,  decide  the  question  whether  fig- 
paste  is  truly  a  health-food;  or  whether,  in  view  of  a 
recent  colossal  gift  for  educational  purposes,  the  prod 
uct  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  was  the  midnight  oil 
which  Shakespeare  had  in  mind  when  he  spoke  of  the 
scholar  wasting  it;  or  something  of  that  kind.  His 
mind  is  whetted  to  the  sharpest  edge  by  its  employment 
with  these  problems,  and  is  in  prime  condition  for  such 
simple  practical  inquiries  as  those  proposed  by  the  let 
ter  we  had  received.  But,  of  course,  he  put  on  an  air 
of  great  hurry,  and  spoke  of  the  different  poems,  novels, 
essays,  and  sketches  which  he  ha.d  laid  aside  to  oblige 
us,  and  begged  us  to  get  down  to  business  at  once. 

"  We  wish  nothing  better  than  to  do  so,"  we  said,  to 
humor  him,  "  for  we  know  you  are  a  very  busy  man, 
and  we  will  not  keep  you  a  moment  longer  than  is 
absolutely  necessary.  Would  you  like  to  have  all  the 
questions  at  once,  or  would  you  rather  study  them  one 
after  another?" 

He  said  he  thought  he  could  better  give  an  undivided 

186 


A    SEARCH    FOR    CELEBRITY 

mind  to  each  if  lie  had  them  one  at  a  time,  and  so  we 
began  with  the  first : 

"  *  1.  Would  you  advise  the  young  story  -  writer  to 
study  the  old  masters  in  literature  or  the  stories  in  the 
current  magazines,  in  order  to  meet  the  demands  of  the 
current  editors  ?' ' 

"  Will  you  read  that  again  ?"  the  author  prominent 
ly  before  the  public  demanded,  but  when  we  had  read 
it  a  second  time  it  seemed  only  to  plunge  him  deeper 
into  despair.  He  clutched  his  revered  head  with  both 
hands,  and  but  for  an  opportune  baldness  would  prob 
ably  have  torn  his  hair.  He  murmured,  huskily,  "  Do 
you  think  you  have  got  it  right?" 

We  avoided  the  response  "  Sure  thing  "  by  an  appro 
priate  circumlocution,  and  then  he  thundered  back: 
"  How  in — nature — is  a  young  writer  to  forecast  the 
demands  of  current  editors  ?  If  an  editor  is  worth  his 
salt — his  Attic  salt — he  does  not  know  himself  what 
he  wants,  except  by  the  eternal  yearning  of  the  editorial 
soul  for  something  new  and  good.  If  he  has  any  other 
demands,  he  is  not  a  current  editor,  he  is  a  stagnant 
editor.  Is  it  possible  that  there  is  a  superstition  to  the 
contrary  ?" 

"  Apparently." 

"  Then  that  would  account  for  many  things.  But 
go  on." 

"  Go  on  yourself.  You  have  not  answered  the  ques 
tion." 

"  Oh,  by  all  means,"  the  author  sardonically  an 
swered  ;  "  if  the  current  editor  has  demands  beyond 
freshness  and  goodness,  let  the  young  writer  avoid  the 
masters  in  literature  and  study  the  stories  in  the  cur 
rent  magazines." 

"  You  are  not  treating  the  matter  seriously,"  we 
expostulated. 

187 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  Yes,  I  am  —  seriously,  sadly,  even  tragically.  I 
could  not  have  imagined  a  condition  of  things  so  bad, 
even  with  the  results  all  round  us.  Let  us  have  the 
second  question  of  your  correspondent." 

"  Here  it  is :  '  2.  Has  the  unknown  writer  an  equal 
chance  with  the  well-known  author,  provided  his  work 
is  up  to  the  standard  of  the  latter's  ?'  '' 

"  Of  the  latter's  ?— of  the  latter's  ?— of  the  latter's  ?" 
Our  friend  whispered  the  phrase  to  himself  before  he 
groaned  out :  "  What  a  frightful  locution !  Really, 
really,  it  is  more  than  I  can  bear !" 

"  For  the  cause  you  ought  to  bear  anything.  What 
do  you  really  think?" 

"  Why,  if  the  former's  work  is  as  good  as  the  lat 
ter's,  why  isn't  the  former's  chance  as  good  if  the  cur 
rent  editor's  demands  are  for  the  same  kind  in  the 
former's  case  as  in  the  latter's?  If  the  latter's  aim 
is  to  meet  the  imaginary  demands  of  the  stagnant  editor, 
then  the  former's  work  ought  to  be  as  attractive  as  the 
latter's.  Ha,  ha,  ha!" 

He  laughed  wildly,  and  in  order  to  recall  him  to  him 
self  we  read  the  third  question :  "  i  3.  Which  is  the 
more  acceptable — a  well-told  story  with  a  weak  plot,  or 
a  poorly  told  story  with  a  strong  plot  ?' ' 

"  Oh,  but  that  is  a  conundrum,  pure  and  simple !" 
the  author  protested.  "  It  is  a  poor  parody  on  the 
old  End-man  pleasantry,  '  Would  you  rather  be  as 
foolish  as  you  look,  or  look  as  foolish  as  you  are  f 
You  are  making  it  up!" 

"  We  assure  you  we  are  not.  It  is  no  more  a  co 
nundrum  than  the  others.  Come :  question !" 

"  Well,  in  the  first  place,  I  should  like  to  know  what 
a  plot  is.  Something  that  has  occurred  to  you  primarily 
as  an  effect  from  your  experience  or  observation?  Or 
something  you  have  carpentered  out  of  the  old  stuff  of 

188 


A    SEAKCH    FOR    CELEBRITY 

your  reading,  with  a  wooden  hero  and  heroine  re 
ciprocally  dying  for  each  other,  and  a  wooden  villain 
trying  to  foil  them  ?" 

"  You  had  better  ask  a  current  editor  or  a  stagnant. 
Do  you  confess  yourself  posed  by  this  plain  problem  ? 
Do  you  give  it  up  ?" 

"  For  the  present.  Perhaps  I  may  gather  light  from 
the  next  question." 

"  Then  here  it  is :  '  4.  What  do  you  consider  the  pri 
mary  weakness  in  the  average  stories  or  verses  of  the 
old  writers  ?" 

"  Oh,  that  is  easy.  The  same  as  in  the  average 
stories  and  verses  of  the  younger  writers — absence  of 
mind." 

"  Are  you  sure  you  are  not  shirking  ?  Cannot  you 
give  a  categorical  answer — something  that  will  really 
help  some  younger  writer  to  take  the  place  which  you 
are  now  more  or  less  fraudulently  holding?  The 
younger  writers  will  cheerfully  allow  that  the  trouble 
is  absence  of  mind,  but  what  line  of  reading  would 
you  suggest  which  would  turn  this  into  presence  of 
mind  ?" 

"  There  is  none,  except  to  have  themselves  newly 
ancestored.  Presence  of  mind  as  well  as  absence  of 
mind  is  something  derived ;  you  cannot  acquire  it." 

"  We  think  you  might  be  a  little  less  sardonic.  Now 
here  is  the  next  problem :  '  5.  What  are  the  successful 
author's  necessary  qualifications  in  the  matters  of  nat 
ural  ability,  education,  life  as  he  sees  it  and  lives  it, 
technical  training,  etc  ?' ' 

"  This  will  be  the  death  of  me !"  the  prominent  au 
thor  lamented.  "  Couldn't  I  skip  that  one  ?" 

"  It  seems  to  cover  some  of  tho  most  important  points. 
We  do  not  think  your  self-rospect  will  allow  you  to  ski]) 
it.  At  any  rate,  make  an  effort  to  answer  it" 

180 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

Thus  challenged,  the  prominent  author  pulled  him 
self  together.  "  Oh/7  he  said,  sadly,  "  which  of  us 
knows  whether  he  has  natural  ability  or  not,  and  what 
is  education,  and  what  is  life  as  one  sees  it,  and  what 
is  technical  training?  Do  these  poor  young  fellows 
think  that  one  is  tall  or  short  by  taking  thought  \  It  is 
the  same  as  that,  it  seems  to  me;  or  if  you  prefer  a 
mystical  solution,  I  should  say,  if  you  have  a  longing, 
from  your  earliest  consciousness,  to  write  poetry  or 
fiction,  and  cannot  keep  from  doing  it  for  any  long 
time  together,  you  are  possibly  born  with  a  gift  for  it. 
But  this  may  be  altogether  a  mistake;  it  may  be  the 
effect  of  your  early  and  incessant  scribblings  on  the 
minds  of  spectators  wholly  incompetent  to  judge  of  your 
abilities,  such  as  your  fond  parents.  This  must  rather 
often  happen  if  we  can  judge  from  what  nine-tenths  of 
what  is  called  literature  is  composed  of.  If  your  long 
ing  to  write  is  the  real  thing,  or  is  not,  still  education 
will  not  help  or  hinder  you  in  doing  it.  No  man  was 
ever  yet  taught  any  art.  He  may  be  taught  a  trade, 
and  that  is  what  most  of  the  versing  and  prosing  is, 
I  suppose.  If  you  have  the  gift,  you  will  technically 
train  yourself :  that  is,  you  will  learn  how  to  be  simple 
and  clear  and  honest.  Charm  you  will  have  got  from 
your  great-grandfather  or  great-grandmother ;  and  life, 
which  is  only  another  sort  of  school,  will  not  qualify 
you  to  depict  life;  but  if  you  do  not  want  to  depict 
life,  you  will  perhaps  be  able  to  meet  the  demands  of 
what  our  friend  calls  the  current  editors." 

Here  the  prominent  author  rose,  but  we  stayed  him 
with  a  gesture.  "  There  is  another  question,  the  last : 
'  6.  Do  you  care  to  convey  any  hints  or  suggestions 
gleaned  from  your  personal  experiences  in  the  climb 
to  success  that  may  make  easier  the  gaining  of  the 
heights  for  the  beginner?" 

190 


A    SEARCH    FOR    CELEBRITY 

The  prominent  author  roared  with  laughter.  "  Read 
that  again!"  13ut  when  we  had  done  so,  he  became 
grave,  even  sorrowful.  "  Is  it  really  true,  then,  as  we 
seem  to  see,  that  there  is  a  large  body  of  young  people 
taking  up  literature  as  a  business  ?  The  thing  that  all 
my  life  I  have  fondly  dreamed  was  an  art,  dear  and 
almost  holy!  Are  they  going  into  it  for  the  money 
there  is  in  it?  And  am  I,  in  my  prominence — more 
or  less  fraudulent,  as  you  say — an  incentive  to  them 
to  persevere  in  their  enterprises  ?  Is  that  what  one  has 
to  come  to  after  a  life  of  conscientious  devotion  to — an 
ideal  ?  Come,  old  friend,  say  it  isn't  so  bad  as  that ! 
It  is  ?  Then  " — the  prominent  author  paused  and  sank 
weakly  into  the  chair  from  which  he  had  risen — "  per 
haps  I  have  been  dreaming  all  these  years;  but  in  my 
dream  it  seems  to  me  that  everything  outside  of  myself 
which  seemed  to  hinder  me  has  really  helped  me. 
There  has  been  no  obstacle  in  my  way  which  if  I 
were  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  where  I  might  very 
rightfully  be,  I  would  have  removed.  I  am  glad  that 
the  climb  to  success,  as  your  friend  calls  it,  has  been 
hard  and  long,  and  I  bless  God  for  my  difficulties  and 
backsets,  all  of  them.  Sometimes  they  seemed  cruel; 
they  filled  nie  with  despair  and  shame;  but  there  was 
not  one  that  did  not  make  me  stronger  and  fitter  for 
my  work,  if  I  was  fit  for  it.  Yon  know  very  well  that 
in  this  art  of  ours  we  need  all  the  strength  we  can 
get  from  our  overthrows.  There  is  no  training  that 
can  ever  make  the  true  artist's  work  easy  to  him,  and 
if  he  is  a  true  artist  he  will  suspect  everything  easily 
done  as  ill  done.  What  comes  hard  and  slow  and  hope 
lessly,  that  is  the  thing  which  when  we  look  at  it  we 
find  is  the  thing  that  was  worth  doing.  I  had  my 
downs  with  my  ups,  and  when  I  was  beginning  the 
downs  outnumbered  the  ups  ten  to  one.  For  one  manu- 

191 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

script  accepted,  and  after  the  days  of  many  years 
printed,  I  had  a  dozen  rejected  and  rejected  without 
delay.  But  every  such  rejection  helped  me.  In  some 
cases  I  had  to  swallow  the  bitter  dose  and  own  that  the 
editor  was  right;  but  the  bitter  was  wholesome.  In 
other  cases  I  knew  that  he  was  wrong,  and  then  I  set 
my  teeth,  and  took  my  courage  in  both  hands,  and 
tried  and  tried  with  that  rejected  manuscript  till  the 
divinely  appointed  editor  owned  that  I  was  right.  But 
these  are  the  commonplaces  of  literary  biography.  I 
don't  brag  of  them ;  and  I  have  always  tried  to  keep  my 
head  in  such  shape  that  even  defeat  has  not  swelled  it 
beyond  the  No.  7  I  began  with.  Why  should  I  be  so 
wicked  as  to  help  another  and  a  younger  man  over  the 
bad  places  ?  If  I  could  only  gain  his  confidence  I  should 
like  to  tell  him  that  these  are  the  places  that  will 
strengthen  his  heart  for  the  climb.  But  if  he  has  a 
weak  heart,  he  had  better  try  some  other  road.  There ! 
I  have  given  you  all  the  c  hints  and  suggestions  from 
my  experience  '  that  I  can  think  of,  and  now  let  me  go." 

Once  more  he  rose,  and  once  more  we  stayed  him. 
"  Yes,"  we  said,  "  no  doubt  you  think  you  have  spoken 
honestly  and  faithfully,  but  you  have  addressed  your 
self  to  the  wrong  audience.  You  have  spoken  to  artists, 
born  and  self-made,  but  artists  can  always  manage 
without  help.  Your  help  was  invoked  in  behalf  of 
artisans,  of  adventurers,  of  speculators.  What  was 
wanted  of  you  was  a  formula  for  the  fabrication  of 
gold  bricks  which  would  meet  the  demands  of  current 
dealers  in  that  sort  of  wares." 

"  But  if  I  have  never  made  gold  bricks  myself,  or  not 
knowingly  ?" 

"  Ah,  that  is  what  you  say !  But  do  you  suppose 
anybody  will  believe  you  ?" 

The  prominent  author  put  on  the  hat  which  he  flat- 

192 


A    SEARCH    FOR    CELEBRITY 

tered  himself  was  a  No.  7,  but  which  we  could  plainly 
see  was  a  No.  12,  and  said,  with  an  air  of  patronizing 
compassion,  "  You  have  sat  here  so  long  in  your  cush 
ioned  comfort,  looking  out  on  the  publishing  world, 
that  you  have  become  corrupt,  cynical,  pessimistic." 


XX 

PRACTICAL    IMMORTALITY    ON    EARTH 

THE  talk  at  a  dinner  given  by  the  Easy  Chair  to 
some  of  its  most  valued  friends  was  of  the  life  after 
death,  and  it  will  not  surprise  any  experienced  ob 
server  to  learn  that  the  talk  went  on  amid  much  un- 
serious  chatter,  with  laughing  irrelevancies  more  ap 
propriate  to  the  pouring  of  champagne,  and  the  chang 
ing  of  plates,  than  to  the  very  solemn  affair  in  hand. 
It  may  not  really  have  been  so  very  solemn.  Nobody 
at  table  took  the  topic  much  to  heart  apparently.  The 
women,  some  of  them,  affected  an  earnest  attention,  but 
were  not  uncheerful;  others  frankly  talked  of  other 
things;  some,  at  the  farther  end  of  the  table,  asked 
what  a  given  speaker  was  saying;  the  men  did  not,  in 
some  cases,  conceal  that  they  were  bored. 

"  !N"o,"  the  first  speaker  said,  after  weighing  the  pros 
and  cons,  "  for  my  part,  I  don't  desire  it.  When  I  am 
through,  here,  I  don't  ask  to  begin  again  elsewhere." 

"  And  you  don't  expect  to  ?"  his  closest  listener  in 
quired. 

"  And  I  don't  expect  to." 

"  It  is  curious,"  the  closest  listener  went  on,  "  how 
much  our  beliefs  are  governed  by  our  wishes  in  this 
matter.  When  we  are  young  and  are  still  hungering 
for  things  to  happen,  we  have  a  strong  faith  in  im 
mortality.  When  we  are  older,  and  the  whole  round 

194 


IMMORTALITY    ON    EARTH 

of  things,  except  death,  has  happened,  we  think  it  very 
likely  we  shall  not  live  again.  It  seems  to  be  the  same 
with  peoples;  the  new  peoples  believe,  the  old  peoples 
doubt.  It  occurs  to  very,  very  few  men  to  be  con 
vinced,  as  a  friend  of  mine  has  been  convinced  against 
the  grain,  of  the  reality  of  the  life  after  death.  I  will 
not  say  by  what  means  he  was  convinced,  for  that  is  not 
pertinent;  but  he  was  fully  convinced,  and  he  said  to 
me:  '  Personally,  I  would  rather  not  live  again,  but  it 
seems  that  people  do.  The  facts  are  too  many;  the 
proofs  I  have  had  are  irresistible;  and  I  have  had  to 
give  way  to  them  in  spite  of  my  wish  to  reject 
them.' " 

"  Yes,"  the  first  speaker  said,  "  that  is  certainly  an 
uncommon  experience.  You  think  that  if  I  were  per 
fectly  honest,  I  should  envy  him  his  experience  ?  Well, 
then,  honestly,  I  don't." 

"  "No,"  the  other  rejoined,  "  I  don't  know  that  I  ac 
cuse  your  sincerity.  But,  may  I  ask,  what  are  your 
personal  objections  to  immortality?" 

"  It  wouldn't  be  easy  to  say.  If  I  could  have  had 
my  way,  I  would  not  have  been  at  all.  Speaking 
selfishly,  as  we  always  do  when  we  speak  truly,  I  have 
not  had  a  great  deal  of  happiness,  though  I  have  had  a 
good  deal  of  fun.  But  things  seem  to  wear  out.  I  like 
to  laugh,  and  I  have  laughed,  in  my  time,  consumedly. 
But  I  find  that  the  laugh  goes  out  of  the  specific  in 
stances  of  laughability,  just  as  grieving  goes  out  of 
grief.  The  thing  that  at  the  first  and  third  time 
amused  rue  enormously  leaves  me  sad  at  the  fourth,  or 
at  least  unmoved.  You  see,  I  can't  trust  immortality 
to  be  permanently  interesting.  The  reasonable  chances 
are  that  in  the  lapse  of  a  few  a?ons  I  should  find 
eternity  hanging  heavy  on  my  hands.  But  it  isn't 
that,  exactly,  and  it  would  be  hard  to  say  what  my  ob- 

105 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

jection  to  immortality  exactly  is.  It  would  be  simpler 
to  say  what  it  really  is.  It  is  personal,  temperamental, 
congenital.  I  was  born,  I  suspect,  an  indifferentist,  as 
far  as  this  life  is  concerned,  and  as  to  another  life,  I 
have  an  acquired  antipathy." 

"  That  is  curious,  but  not  incredible,  and  of  course 
not  inconceivable,"  the  closest  listener  assented. 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  a  light  skirmisher  broke 
his  silence  for  the  first  time.  "  Do  you  mean  to  say," 
he  asked  of  the  first  speaker,  "  that  you  would  not  mind 
being  found  dead  in  your  bed  to-morrow  morning,  and 
that  you  would  rather  like  it  if  that  were  actually  the 
end  of  you  ?" 

The  first  speaker  nodded  his  head  over  the  glass  he 
had  just  emptied,  and  having  swallowed  its  contents 
hastily,  replied,  "  Precisely." 

"  Then  you  have  already,  at  your  age,  evolved  that 
'  instinct  of  death/  which  Metchnikoff,  in  his  strange 
book,  thinks  the  race  will  come  to  when  men  begin 
living  rightly,  and  go  living  on  to  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  or  more,  as  they  once  did." 

"Who  is  Metchnikoff,  and  what  is  the  name  of  his 
strange  book?"  the  light  skirmisher  cut  in. 

"  He's  the  successor  of  Pasteur  in  the  Pasteur  In 
stitute  at  Paris,  and  his  book  is  called  The  Nature  of 
Man." 

"  That  blighting  book !"  One  of  the  women  who 
had  caught  on  to  the  drift  of  the  talk  contributed  this 
anguished  suspiration. 

"Blighting?  Is  it  blighting?"  the  first  speaker 
parleyed. 

"  Don't  you  call  it  blighting,"  she  returned,  "  to  be 
told  not  only  that  you  are  the  descendant  of  an  anthro 
poid  ape — we  had  got  used  to  that — but  of  an  anthro 
poid  ape  gone  wrong  ?" 

106 


IMMORTALITY    ON    EARTH 

"  Sort  of  simian  degenerate,"  the  light  skirmisher 
formulated  the  case.  "  We  are  merely  apes  in  error." 

The  closest  listener  put  this  playfulness  by.  "  What 
seems  to  me  a  fundamental  error  of  that  book  is  its 
constant  implication  of  a  constant  fear  of  death.  I 
can  very  well  imagine,  or  I  can  easily  allow,  that  we 
are  badly  made,  and  that  there  are  all  sorts  of  e  dis 
harmonies,'  as  Metchnikoff  calls  them,  in  us;  but  my 
own  experience  is  that  we  are  not  all  the  time  thinking 
about  death  and  dreading  it,  either  in  earlier  or  later 
life,  and  that  elderly  people  think  less  about  it,  if  any 
thing,  than  younger  people.  His  contention  for  an 
average  life  four  or  five  times  longer  than  the  present 
average  life  seems  to  be  based  upon  an  obscure  sense 
of  the  right  of  a  man  to  satisfy  that  instinct  of  life 
here  on  earth  which  science  forbids  him  to  believe  he 
shall  satisfy  hereafter." 

"  Well,  I  suppose,"  the  first  speaker  said,  "  that 
Metchnikoff  may  err  in  his  premises  through  a  tempera 
mental  '  disharmony  9  of  Russian  nature  rather  than  of 
less  specific  human  nature.  The  great  Russian  authors 
seem  to  recognize  that  perpetual  dread  of  death  in  them 
selves  and  their  readers  which  we  don't  recognize  in 
ourselves  or  our  Occidental  friends  and  neighbors. 
Other  people  don't  think  of  death  so  much  as  he  sup 
poses,  and  when  they  do  they  don't  dread  it  so  much. 
Hut  I  think  he  is  still  more  interestingly  wrong  in 
supposing  that  the  young  are  less  afraid  of  death  than 
the  old  because  they  risk  their  lives  more  readily. 
That  is  not  from  indifference  to  death,  it  is  from  in 
experience  of  life ;  they  haven't  learned  yet  the  dangers 
which  beset  it  and  the  old  have;  that  is  all." 

"  T  don't  know  but  you're  right,"  the  first  speaker 
said.  "  And  I  couldn't  see  the  logic  of  Metchnikoff 's 
position  in  regard  to  the  '  instinct  of  death  '  which  he 

197 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

expects  us  to  develop  after  we  have  lived,  say,  a  hun 
dred  and  thirty  or  forty  years,  so  that  at  a  hundred 
and  fifty  we  shall  be  glad  to  go,  and  shall  not  want 
anything  but  death  after  we  die.  The  apparent  line 
of  his  argument  is  that  in  youth  we  have  not  the  in 
stinct  of  life  so  strongly  but  that  we  willingly  risk  life. 
Then,  until  we  live  to  a  hundred  and  thirty  or  forty 
or  so,  we  have  the  instinct  of  life  so  strongly  that  we 
are  anxious  to  shun  death;  lastly  the  instinct  of  death 
grows  in  us  and  we  are  eager  to  lay  down  life.  I  don't 
see  how  or  why  this  should  be.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
children  dread  death  far  more  than  men  who  are  not 
yet  old  enough  to  have  developed  the  instinct  of  it. 
Still,  it's  a  fascinating  and  suggestive  book." 

"  But  not  enough  so  to  console  us  for  the  precious 
hope  of  living  again  which  it  takes  away  so  pitilessly," 
said  the  woman  who  had  followed  the  talk. 

"  Is  that  such  a  very  precious  hope  ?"  the  first  speaker 
asked. 

"  I  know  you  pretend  not,"  she  said,  "  but  I  don't 
believe  you." 

"  Then  you  think  that  the  dying,  who  almost  uni 
versally  make  a  good  end,  are  buoyed  up  by  that  hope  ?" 

"  I  don't  see  why  they  shouldn't  be.  I  know  it's  the 
custom  for  scientific  people  to  say  that  the  resignation 
of  the  dying  is  merely  part  of  the  general  sinking  and 
so  is  just  physical;  but  they  can't  prove  that.  Else 
why  should  persons  who  are  condemned  to  death  be 
just  as  much  resigned  to  it  as  the  sick  and  even  more 
exalted  ?" 

"  Ah,"  the  light  skirmisher  put  in,  "  some  of  the  sci 
entific  people  dispose  of  that  point  very  simply.  They 
say  it's  self-hypnotism." 

"  Well,  but  they  can't  prove  that,  either,"  she  re 
torted.  Then  she  went  on :  "  Besides,  the  dying  are  not 

198 


IMMORTALITY    ON    EARTH 

almost  universally  willing  to  die.  Sometimes  they  are 
very  unwilling:  and  they  seem  to  be  unwilling  because 
they  have  no  hope  of  living  again.  Why  wouldn't  it 
be  just  as  reasonable  to  suppose  that  we  could  evolve 
the  instinct  of  death  by  believing  in  the  life  hereafter 
as  by  living  here  a  hundred  and  fifty  years?  For  the 
present,  it's  as  easy  to  do  the  one  as  the  other." 

"  But  not  for  the  future/'  the  first  speaker  said. 
"  As  you  suggest,  it  may  be  just  as  reasonable  to  think 
we  can  evolve  the  instinct  of  death  by  faith  as  by 
longevity,  but  it  isn't  as  scientific." 

"  What  M.  Metclmikoff  wants  is  the  scientific  cer 
tainty — which  we  can  have  only  by  beginning  to  live  a 
century  and  a  half  apiece — that  the  coming  man  will 
not  be  afraid  to  die."  This,  of  course,  was  from  the 
light  skirmisher. 

The  woman  contended,  "  The  coming  man  may  be 
scientifically  resigned  if  he  prefers,  but  the  going  man, 
the  gone  man,  was  rapturously  ready  to  die,  in  untold 
thousands  of  martyrdoms,  because  he  believed  that  lie 
should  live  again." 

The  first  speaker  smiled  compassionately,  and  per 
haps  also  a  little  patronizingly.  "  I'm  not  sure  that 
you  have  met  the  point  exactly.  Metchnikoff  denies, 
on  the  basis  of  scientific  knowledge,  that  it  is  possible 
for  a  man,  being  dead,  to  live  again.  In  those  two 
extremely  interesting  chapters  of  his,  which  treat  of 
the  '  Religious  Remedies '  and  the  i  Philosophical 
Remedies  '  for  the  '  disharmonies  of  the  human  con 
stitution/  he  is  quite  as  unsparing  of  the  sages  as  of 
the  saints.  The  Christians  and  the  Buddhists  fare  no 
worse  than  Plato  and  the  Stoics;  the  last  are  no  less 
unscientific  than  the  first  in  his  view,  and  no  less  fal 
lacious.  What  he  asks  is  not  that  we  shall  be  resigned 
or  enraptured  in  view  of  death,  but  that  we  shall  physi- 

199 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

cally  desire  it  when  we  are  tired  of  living,  just  as  we 
physically  desire  sleep  when  we  are  tired  of  waking." 

"  And  to  that  end/'  the  light  skirmisher  said,  "  he 
asks  nothing  but  that  we  shall  live  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years." 

"  No,  he  asks  that  we  shall  live  such  natural  lives 
that  we  shall  die  natural  deaths,  which  are  voluntary 
deaths.  He  contends  that  most  of  us  now  die  accidental 
and  violent  deaths." 

The  woman  who  had  caught  on  demanded,  "  Why 
does  he  think  we  could  live  a  century  and  a  half  ?" 

"  From  analogies  in  the  lives  of  other  animals  and 
from  the  facts  of  our  constitution.  He  instances  the 
remarkable  cases  of  longevity  recorded  in  the  Bible." 

"  I  think  he's  very  inconsistent,"  his  pursuer  con 
tinued.  "  The  Bible  says  men  lived  anywhere  from  a 
hundred  to  nine  hundred  years,  and  he  thinks  it  quite 
possible.  The  Bible  says  that  men  live  after  death,  and 
he  thinks  that's  impossible." 

"  Well,  have  you  ever  met  a  man  who  had  lived  after 
death  2"  the  first  speaker  asked. 

"  No.  Have  you  ever  met  a  man  two  hundred  years 
old  ?  If  it  comes  to  undeniable  proof  there  is  far  more 
proof  of  ghosts  than  of  bicentenarians." 

"  Very  well,  then,  I  get  out  of  it  by  saying  that  I 
don't  believe  in  either." 

"And  leave  Metchnikoff  in  the  lurch!"  the  light 
skirmisher  reproached  him.  "  You  don't  believe  in  the 
instinct  of  death!  And  I  was  just  going  to  begin  liv 
ing  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  and  dying  voluntarily  by 
leaving  off  cheese.  Now  I  will  take  some  of  the  Gor- 
gonzola." 

Everybody  laughed  but  the  first  speaker  and  the 
woman  who  had  caught  on;  they  both  looked  rather 
grave,  and  the  closest  listener  left  off  laughing  soonest. 

200 


IMMORTALITY    ON    EARTH 

''  We  can't  be  too  grateful  to  science  for  its  devotion 
to  truth.  But  isn't  it  possible  for  it  to  overlook  one 
kind  of  truth  in  looking  for  another?  Isn't  it  im 
aginable  that  when  a  certain  anthropoid  ape  went  wrong 
and  blundered  into  a  man,  he  also  blundered  into  a 
soul,  and  as  a  slight  compensation  for  having  invol 
untarily  degenerated  from  his  anthropoid  ancestor, 
came  into  the  birthright  of  eternal  life  ?" 

"  It's  imaginable,"  the  first  speaker  granted.  "  But 
science  leaves  imagining  things  to  religion  and  phi 
losophy." 

"  Ah,  that's  just  where  you're  mistaken !"  the  woman 
who  had  caught  on  exclaimed.  "  Science  does  nothing 
but  imagine  things !" 

"  Well,  not  quite,"  the  light  skirmisher  mocked. 

She  persisted  unheeding :  "  First  the  suggestion  from 
the  mystical  somewhere — the  same  where,  probably, 
that  music  and  pictures  and  poetry  come  from;  then 
the  hypothesis;  then  the  proof;  then  the  established 
fact.  Established  till  some  new  scientist  comes  along 
and  knocks  it  over." 

"  It  would  be  very  interesting  if  some  one  would 
proceed  hypothetically  concerning  the  soul  and  its  im 
mortality,  as  the  scientific  people  do  in  their  inquiries 
concerning  the  origin  of  man,  electricity,  disease,  and 
the  rest." 

"  Yes,"  the  light  skirmisher  agreed.  "  Why  doesn't 
some  fellow  bet  himself  that  he  has  an  undying  soul 
and  then  go  on  to  accumulate  the  proofs  ?"  The  others 
seemed  now  to  have  touched  bottom  in  the  discussion, 
and  he  launched  a  random  inquiry  upon  the  general 
silence.  "  By-the-way,  I  wonder  why  women  are  so 
much  more  anxious  to  live  again  than  men,  as  a  general 
thing." 

"  Because  they   don't  feel,"   one  of  them   at   table 
14  201 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

ventured,  "  that  they  have  had  a  fair  chance 
here." 

"  Oh !  I  thought  maybe  they  felt  that  they  hadn't 
had  their  say." 

"  Is  it  quite  certain,"  the  closest,  listener  asked,  "  that 
they  are  more  anxious  to  live  again  than  men?"  He 
looked  round  at  the  ladies  present,  and  at  first  none  of 
them  answered;  perhaps  because  they  feared  the  men 
would  think  them  weak  if  they  owned  to  a  greater 
longing  than  themselves  for  immortality. 

Finally  the  woman  who  had  caught  on  said :  "  I 
don't  know  whether  it's  so  or  not ;  and  I  don't  think  it 
matters.  But  I  don't  mind  saying  that  I  long  to  live 
again;  I  am  not  ashamed  of  it.  I  don't  think  very 
much  of  myself ;  but  I'm  interested  in  living.  Then  " 
— she  dropped  her  voice  a  little — "  there  are  some  I 
should  like  to  see  again.  I  have  known  people — char 
acters — natures — that  I  can't  believe  are  wasted.  And 
those  that  were  dear  to  us  and  that  we  have  lost — " 

She  stopped,  and  the  first  speaker  now  looked  at  her 
with  a  compassion  unalloyed  by  patronage,  and  did 
not  ask,  as  he  might,  "  What  has  all  that  to  do  with  it  ?" 

In  fact,  a  sympathetic  silence  possessed  the  whole 
company.  It  was  broken  at  last  by  the  closest  listener's 
saying :  "  After  all,  I  don't  know  that  MetchnikofFs 
book  is  so  very  blighting.  It's  certainly  a  very  im 
portant  book,  and  it  produces  a  reaction  which  may  be 
wholesome  or  unwholesome  as  you  choose  to  think. 
And  no  matter  what  we  believe,  we  must  respect  the 
honesty  of  the  scientific  attitude  in  regard  to  a  matter 
that  has  been  too  much  abandoned  to  the  emotions,  per 
haps.  In  all  seriousness  I  wish  some  scientific  man 
would  apply  the  scientific  method  to  finding  out  the 
soul,  as  you  " — he  turned  to  the  light  skirmisher — 
"  suggest.  Why  shouldn't  it  be  investigated  ?" 

202 


IMMORTALITY    ON    EARTH 

Upon  this  invitation  the  light  skirmisher  tried  to 
imagine  some  psychological  experiments  which  should 
bear  a  certain  analogy  to  those  of  the  physicists,  but  he 
failed  to  keep  the  level  of  his  suggestion. 

"  As  I  said,"  the  closest  listener  remarked,  "  he  pro 
duces  a  secondary  state  of  revolt  which  is  desirable, 
for  in  that  state  we  begin  to  inquire  not  only  where 
we  stand,  but  where  he  stands." 

"  And  what  is  your  conclusion  as  to  his  place  in  tho 
inquiry  ?" 

"  That  it  isn't  different  from  yours  or  mine,  really. 
We  all  share  the  illusion  of  the  race  from  the  beginning 
that  somehow  our  opinion  of  the  matter  affects  its  real 
ity.  I  should  distinguish  so  far  as  to  say  that  we  think 
we  believe,  and  he  thinks  he  knows.  For  my  own  part, 
I  have  the  impression  that  he  has  helped  my  belief." 

The  light  skirmisher  made  a  desperate  effort  to  re 
trieve  himself:  "  Then  a  few  more  books  like  his  would 
restore  the  age  of  faith." 


XXI 

AROUND    A    RAINY-DAY    FIRE 

A  NUMBER  of  the  Easy  Chair's  friends  were  sitting 
round  the  fire  in  the  library  of  a  country-house.  The 
room  was  large  and  full  of  a  soft,  flattering  light.  The 
fire  was  freshly  kindled,  and  flashed  and  crackled  with 
a  young  vivacity,  letting  its  rays  frolic  over  the  serried 
bindings  on  the  shelves,  the  glazed  pictures  on  the  walls, 
the  cups  of  after-luncheon  coffee  in  the  hands  of  the 
people,  and  the  tall  jugs  and  pots  in  the  tray  left  stand 
ing  on  the  library  table.  It  was  summer,  but  a  cold 
rain  was  falling  forbiddingly  without.  No  one  else 
could  come,  and  no  one  could  wish  to  go.  The  con 
ditions  all  favored  a  just  self-esteem,  and  a  sense  of 
providential  preference  in  the  accidental  assemblage  of 
those  people  at  that  time  and  place. 

The  talk  was  rather  naturally,  though  not  neces 
sarily,  of  books,  and  one  of  the  people  was  noting  that 
children  seemed  to  like  short  stories  because  their  minds 
had  not  the  strength  to  keep  the  facts  of  a  whole  book. 
The  effort  tired  them,  and  they  gave  it  up,  not  be 
cause  a  book  did  not  interest  them,  but  because  it  ex 
hausted  their  little  powers.  They  were  good  for  a 
leap,  or  a  dash,  or  a  short  flight  in  literature,  even 
very  high  literature,  but  they  had  not  really  the  force 
for  anything  covering  greater  time  and  space. 

Another  declared  this  very  suggestive,  and  declared 
it  in  such  a  way  that  the  whole  company  perceived  he 

204 


AROUND    A    RAINY-DAY    FIRE 

had  something  behind  his  words,  and  besought  him  to 
say  what  he  meant.  He  did  so,  as  well  as  he  could, 
after  protesting  that  it  was  not  very  novel,  or  if  so, 
perhaps  not  very  important,  and  if  it  was  important, 
perhaps  it  was  not  true.  They  said  they  would  take 
the  chances;  and  then  he  said  that  it  was  merely  a 
notion  which  had  occurred  to  him  at  the  moment  con 
cerning  the  new  reading  of  the  new  reading  public, 
whether  it  might  not  be  all  juvenile  literature,  adapted 
in  mature  terms  to  people  of  physical  adolescence  but 
of  undeveloped  thinking  and  feeling:  not  really  feeble 
minded  youth,  but  aesthetically  and  intellectually  chil 
dren,  who  might  presently  grow  into  the  power  of  en 
joying  and  digesting  food  for  men.  By-and-by  they 
might  gather  fortitude  for  pleasure  in  real  literature, 
in  fiction  which  should  not  be  a  travesty  of  the  old 
fairy-tales,  or  stories  of  adventures  among  giants  and 
robbers  and  pirates,  or  fables  with  human  beings  speak 
ing  from  the  motives  and  passions  of  animals.  He 
mentioned  fiction,  he  said,  because  the  new  reading  of 
the  new  reading  public  seemed  to  be  nearly  altogether 
fiction. 

All  this  had  so  much  the  effect  of  philosophical 
analysis  that  those  comfortable  people  were  lulled  into 
self  -  approving  assent ;  and  putting  themselves  alto 
gether  apart  from  the  new  reading  public,  they  begged 
him  to  say  what  he  meant.  He  answered  that  there 
was  nothing  more  phenomenal  in  the  modern  American 
life;  and  he  paid  a  pretty  tribute  to  their  ignorance 
in  owning  that  he  was  not  surprised  they  knew  nothing 
of  that  public.  He  promised  that  he  would  try  to  de 
fine  it,  and  he  began  by  remarking  that  it  seemed  to  be 
largely  composed  of  the  kind  of  persons  who  at  the 
theatre  audibly  interpret  the  action  to  one  another. 
The  present  company  must  have  heard  them  ? 

205 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

His  listeners  again  assented.  Was  the  new  reading 
public  drawn  from  the  theatre-going,  or  more  definitely 
speaking,  the  matinee  class? 

There  was  something  odd,  there,  the  philosopher  re 
turned.  The  matinee  class  was  as  large  as  ever :  larger ; 
while  the  new  reading  public,  perfectly  interchangeable 
with  it  in  its  intellectual  pleasure  and  experiences,  had 
suddenly  outnumbered  it  a  thousandfold.  The  popular 
novel  and  the  popular  play  were  so  entirely  of  one 
fibre  and  texture,  and  so  easily  convertible,  that  a  new 
novel  was  scarcely  in  every  one's  bread-trough  before 
it  was  on  the  boards  of  all  the  theatres.  This  led  some 
to  believe  that  we  were  experiencing  a  revival  of  the 
drama,  and  that  if  we  kept  on  having  authors  who  sold 
half  a  million  copies  we  could  not  help  having  a  Shake 
speare  by-and-by :  he  must  follow. 

One  of  those  listening  asked,  But  how  had  these  peo 
ple  begun  so  instantaneously  to  form  themselves  into 
this  new  innumerable  reading  public  ?  If  they  were  of 
that  quality  of  mind  which  requires  the  translation  of 
an  unmistakable  meaning  from  the  players  to  the  play 
goers,  they  must  find  themselves  helpless  when  grap 
pling  in  solitude  with  the  sense  of  a  book.  Why  did 
not  they  go  increasingly  to  the  theatre  instead  of  turn 
ing  so  overwhelmingly  to  the  printed  word  ? 

The  philosopher  replied  that  they  had  not  now  be 
gun  to  do  this,  but  only  seemed  to  have  begun,  since 
there  really  was  no  beginning  in  anything.  The  read 
ers  had  always  been  in  the  immense  majority,  because 
they  could  read  anywhere,  and  they  could  see  plays 
only  in  the  cities  and  towns.  If  the  theatre  were  uni 
versal,  undoubtedly  they  would  prefer  plays,  because 
a  play  makes  far  less  draft  upon  the  mental  capacities 
or  energies  than  the  silliest  book;  and  what  seemed 
their  effort  to  interpret  it  to  one  another  might  very 

206 


AROUND    A    RAINY-DAY    FIRE 

well  be  the  exchange  of  their  delight  in  it.  The  books 
they  preferred  were  of  the  nature  of  poor  plays,  full  of 
"  easy  things  to  understand,"  cheap,  common  incidents, 
obvious  motives,  and  vulgar  passions,  such  as  had  been 
used  a  thousand  times  over  in  literature.  They  were 
fitted  for  the  new  reading  public  for  this  reason;  the 
constant  repetition  of  the  same  characters,  events, 
scenes,  plots,  gave  their  infantile  minds  the  pleasure 
which  children  find  in  having  a  story  told  over  and 
over  in  exactly  the  same  terms.  The  new  reading  pub 
lic  would  rebel  against  any  variance,  just  as  chil 
dren  do. 

The  most  of  the  company  silently  acquiesced,  or  at 
least  were  silent,  but  one  of  them  made  the  speaker 
observe  that  he  had  not  told  them  what  this  innumer 
able  unreasoning  multitude  had  read  before  the  present 
plague  of  handsome,  empty,  foolish  duodecimos  had  in 
fested  everybody's  bread-trough. 

The  philosopher  said  the  actual  interior  form  of  non- 
literary  literature  was  an  effect  of  the  thin  spread  of 
our  literary  culture,  and  outwardly  was  the  effect  of 
the  thick  spread  of  our  material  prosperity.  The 
dollar-and-a-half  novel  of  to-day  was  the  dime  novel 
of  yesterday  in  an  avatar  which  left  its  essence  un 
changed.  It  was  even  worse,  for  it  was  less  sincerely 
and  forcibly  written,  and  it  could  not  be  so  quickly 
worn  out  and  thrown  away.  Its  beauty  of  paper,  print, 
and  binding  gave  it  a  claim  to  regard  which  could  not 
be  ignored,  and  established  for  it  a  sort  of  right  to  lie 
upon  the  table,  and  then  stand  upon  the  shelf,  where 
it  seemed  to  relate  itself  to  genuine  literature,  and  to 
be  of  the  same  race  and  lineage.  As  for  this  vast  new 
reading  public,  it  was  the  vast  old  reading  public  with 
more  means  in  its  pocket  of  satisfying  its  crude,  child 
ish  taste,  Its  head  was  the  same  emptv  head, 

207 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

There  was  a  sort  of  dreadful  finality  in  this,  and  for 
a  while  no  one  spoke.  Then  some  one  tried  in  vain  to 
turn  the  subject,  while  the  philosopher  smiled  upon 
the  desolation  he  had  made;  and  then  one  of  that  sex 
which  when  satisfied  of  the  truth  likes  to  have  its 
"  sense  of  satisfaction  ache  "  through  the  increase  of 
conviction,  asked  him  why  the  English  reading  public, 
which  must  be  so  much  more  cultivated  than  our  new 
reading  public,  seemed  to  like  the  same  sort  of  puerile 
effects  in  works  of  imagination,  the  stirring  incidents, 
the  well-worn  plots,  the  primitive  passions,  and  the  ro 
bustious  incentives.  He  owned  the  fact,  but  he  con 
tended  that  the  fact,  though  interesting,  was  not  so 
mysterious  as  it  appeared  at  first  sight.  It  could  be 
explained  that  the  English  had  never  taken  the  im 
agination  very  seriously,  and  that  in  their  dense,  close 
civilization,  packed  tight  with  social,  political,  and  ma 
terial  interests,  they  asked  of  the  imagination  chiefly 
excitement  and  amusement.  They  had  not  turned  to  it 
for  edification  or  instruction,  for  that  thrill  of  solemn 
joy  which  comes  of  vital  truth  profoundly  seen  and 
clearly  shown.  For  this  reason  when  all  Europe  be 
sides  turned  her  face  to  the  light,  some  decades  ago, 
in  the  pages  of  the  great  prose  poets  who  made  the  age 
illustrious,  England  preferred  the  smoky  links  and 
dancing  damp-fires  which  had  pleased  her  immature 
fancy,  and  kept  herself  well  in  the  twilight  of  the  old 
ideal  of  imagination  as  the  mother  of  unrealities. 
There  could  be  no  doubt,  the  philosopher  thought, 
that  the  recrudescence  which  her  best  wits  recognized 
as  the  effects  of  this  perversity,  was  the  origin  of  the 
preposterous  fiction  which  we  now  feed  to  the  new  read 
ing  public,  and  which  we  think  must  somehow  be  right 
because  it  was  hers  and  is  ours,  and  has  the  sanction 
of  race  and  tradition. 


AROUND    A    RAINY-DAY    FIRE 

It  was  not,  he  continued,  a  thing  to  shed  the  tear 
of  unavailing  regret  for,  though  it  was  not  a  transitory 
phase,  or  a  state  of  transition,  for  the  condition  that 
now  existed  had  always  existed.  The  new  reading  pub 
lic  was  larger  than  ever  before  not  merely  because 
there  was  a  f resli  demand  for  reading,  but  because  more 
people  were  lettered  and  moneyed  and  leisured,  and  did 
not  know  what  otherwise  to  do  with  themselves.  It 
was  quite  simple,  and  the  fact  was  less  to  be  regretted 
in  itself  than  for  an  indirect  result  which  might  be 
feared  from  it.  He  paused  at  this,  in  order  to  be  asked 
what  this  result  was,  and  being  promptly  asked  he 
went  on. 

It  was,  he  said,  the  degradation  of  authorship  as  a 
calling,  in  the  popular  regard.  He  owned  that  in  the 
past  authorship  had  enjoyed  too  much  honor  in  the 
reverence  and  affection  of  the  world:  not  always,  in 
deed,  but  at  certain  times.  As  long  as  authors  were 
the  clients  and  dependents  of  the  great,  they  could  not 
have  been  the  objects  of  a  general  interest  or  honor. 
They  had  then  passed  the  stage  when  the  simple  poet 
or  story-teller  was  wont  to 

— sit  upon  the  ground, 
And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  deaths  of  kings, 

to  wondering  and  admiring  circles  of  simple  listeners, 
and  they  had  not  yet  come  to  that  hour  of  authorship 
when  it  reverted  to  the  peasantry,  now  turned  people, 
and  threw  itself  upon  the  people's  generous  acceptance 
and  recognition  for  bread  and  fame.  But  when  that 
hour  came,  it  brought  with  it  the  honor  of  a  reverent 
and  persistent  curiosity  concerning  literature  and  tho 
literary  life,  which  the  philosopher  said  he  was  afraid 
could  not  survive  the  actual  superabundance  of  au 
thors  and  the  transformation  of  the  novelist  into  the 

209 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

artisan.  There  seemed,  he  pursued,  a  fixed  formula 
for  the  manufacture  of  a  work  of  fiction,  to  be  studied 
and  practised  like  any  other.  Literature  was  degraded 
from  an  art  to  a  poor  sort  of  science,  in  the  practical 
application  of  which  thousands  were  seen  prospering; 
for  the  immense  output  of  our  press  represented  the 
industry  of  hundreds  and  thousands.  A  book  was  con 
cocted,  according  to  a  patent  recipe,  advertised,  and 
sold  like  any  other  nostrum,  and  perhaps  the  time  was 
already  here  when  it  was  no  longer  more  creditable  to 
be  known  as  the  author  of  a  popular  novel  than  as  the 
author  of  a  popular  medicine,  a  Pain-killer,  a  Sooth 
ing  Syrup,  a  Vegetable  Compound,  a  Horse  Liniment, 
or  a  Germicide.  Was  it  possible,  he  asked,  for  a  reader 
of  the  last  book  selling  a  hundred  thousand  copies  to 
stand  in  the  loving  or  thrilling  awe  of  the  author  that 
we  used  to  feel  for  Longfellow  and  Tennyson,  for 
Emerson  and  Carlyle,  for  Hawthorne  and  George  Eliot, 
for  Irving  and  Scott,  or  for  any  of  their  great  elders  or 
youngers  ?  He  repeated  that  perhaps  authorship  had 
worked  its  worshippers  too  hard,  but  there  was  no  doubt 
that  their  worship  was  a  genuine  devotion.  For  at 
least  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  it  had  been  eagerly 
offered  in  a  full  acceptance  of  the  Schiller  superstition 
that  at  the  sharing  of  the  earth  the  poet,  representing 
authorship,  had  been  so  much  preoccupied  with  higher 
things  that  he  had  left  the  fleshpots  and  the  loaves  and 
fishes  to  others,  and  was  to  be  compensated  with  a  share 
of  the  divine  honors  paid  to  Jove  himself.  From 
Goethe  to  Carlyle,  what  a  long  roll  of  gods,  demi 
gods,  and  demisemigods  it  was!  It  might  have  been 
bad  for  the  deities,  and  the  philosopher  rather  thought 
it  was,  but  burning  incense  on  the  different  shrines 
was  an  excellent  thing  for  the  votaries,  and  kept  them 
out  of  all  sorts  of  mischiefs,  low  pleasures,  and  vain 

210 


AROUND    A    RAINY-DAY    FIRE 

amusements.  Whether  that  was  really  so  or  not,  the 
doubt  remained  whether  authorship  was  not  now  a 
creed  outworn.  Did  tender  maids  and  virtuous  ma 
trons  still  cherish  the  hope  of  some  day  meeting  their 
literary  idols  in  the  flesh  ?  Did  generous  youth  aspire 
to  see  them  merely  at  a  distance,  and  did  doting  sires 
teach  their  children  that  it  was  an  epoch-making  event 
when  a  great  poet  or  novelist  visited  the  country;  or 
when  they  passed  afar,  did  they  whip  some  favored 
boy,  as  the  father  of  Benvenuto  Cellini  whipped  him 
at  sight  of  a  salamander  in  the  fire  that  he  might  not 
forget  the  prodigy  ?  Now  that  the  earth  had  been  di 
vided  over  again,  and  the  poet  in  his  actual  guise  of 
novelist  had  richly  shared  in  its  goods  with  the  farmer, 
the  noble,  the  merchant,  and  the  abbot,  was  it  necessary 
or  even  fair  that  he  should  be  the  guest  of  heaven  ?  In 
other  words,  now  that  every  successful  author  could 
keep  his  automobile,  did  any  one  want  his  autograph  ? 
In  the  silence  that  fell  upon  the  company  at  these 
words,  the  ticking  of  the  clock  under  its  classic  pedi 
ment  on  the  mantel  was  painfully  audible,  and  had  the 
effect  of  intimating  that  time  now  had  its  innings  and 
eternity  was  altogether  out  of  it.  Several  minutes 
seemed  to  pass  before  any  one  had  the  courage  to  ask 
whether  the  degradation  of  authorship  was  not  partially 
the  result  of  the  stand  taken  by  the  naturalists  in  Zola, 
who  scorned  the  name  of  art  for  his  calling  and  aspired 
to  that  of  science.  The  hardy  adventurer  who  sug 
gested  this  possibility  said  that  it  was  difficult  to  im 
agine  the  soul  stirred  to  the  same  high  passion  by  the 
botanist,  the  astronomer,  the  geologist,  the  electrician, 
or  even  the  entomologist  as  in  former  times  by  the  poet, 
the  humorist,  the  novelist,  or  the  playwright.  If  the 
fictionist  of  whatever  sort  had  succeeded  in  identify 
ing  himself  with  the  scientist,  he  must  leave  the  en- 

211 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

joyment  of  divine  honors  to  the  pianist,  the  farce- 
comedian,  the  portrait-painter,  the  emotional  actor,  and 
the  architect,  who  still  deigned  to  practise  an  art. 

The  philosopher  smiled,  and  owned  that  this  was 
very  interesting,  and  opened  up  a  fresh  field  of  in 
quiry.  The  first  question  there  was  whether  the  im 
aginative  author  were  not  rather  to  blame  for  not  hav 
ing  gone  far  enough  in  the  scientific  direction  in  the 
right  scientific  fashion  than  for  having  taken  that 
course  at  all.  The  famous  reproach  of  poetry  made 
by  Huxley,  that  it  was  mostly  "  sensual  caterwauling," 
might  well  have  given  the  singer  pause  in  striking  the 
sympathetic  catgut  of  his  lyre :  perhaps  the  strings  were 
metallic;  but  no  matter.  The  reproach  had  a  justice 
in  it  that  must  have  stung,  and  made  the  lyrist  wish 
to  be  an  atomic  theorist  at  any  cost.  In  fact,  at  that 
very  moment  science  had,  as  it  were,  caught  the  bread 
out  of  fiction's  mouth,  and  usurped  the  highest  func 
tions  of  imagination.  In  almost  every  direction  of  its 
recent  advance  it  had  made  believe  that  such  and  such 
a  thing  was  so,  and  then  proceeded  to  prove  it.  To  this 
method  we  owed  not  only  the  possession  of  our  present 
happy  abundance  of  microbes  in  every  sort,  but  our 
knowledge  of  the  universe  in  almost  every  respect. 
Science  no  longer  waited  for  the  apple  to  fall  before 
inferring  a  law  of  gravitation,  but  went  about  with  a 
stick  knocking  fruit  off  every  bough  in  the  hope  that 
something  suggestive  would  come  of  it.  On  make- 
believes  of  all  kinds  it  based  the  edifices  of  all  kinds 
of  eternal  veracities.  It  behooved  poetry,  or  fiction, 
which  was  radically  the  same,  to  return  to  its  earliest 
and  simplest  devices  if  it  would  find  itself  in  the  em 
brace  of  science,  and  practise  the  make-beliefs  of  its 
infancy.  Out  of  so  many  there  were  chances  of  some 
coming  true  if  they  were  carried  far  enough  and  long 

212 


AROUND    A    RAINY-DAY    FIRE 

enough.  In  fact,  the  hypothetical  method  of  science 
had  apparently  been  used  in  the  art  of  advertising  the 
works  in  which  the  appetite  of  the  new  reading  public 
was  flattered.  The  publishers  had  hypothesized  from 
the  fact  of  a  population  of  seventy  millions,  the  exist 
ence  of  an  immense  body  of  raw,  coarse  minds,  un 
touched  by  taste  or  intelligence,  and  boldly  addressed 
the  new  fiction  to  it.  As  in  many  suppositions  of  sci 
ence  their  guess  proved  true. 

Then  why,  the  hardy  listener  who  had  spoken  be 
fore  inquired,  was  not  make-believe  the  right  method 
for  the  author,  if  it  was  the  right  method  for  the  sci 
entist  and  the  publisher  ?  Why  should  not  the  novelist 
hypothesize  cases  hitherto  unknown  to  experience,  and 
then  go  on  by  persistent  study  to  find  them  true?  It- 
seemed  to  this  inquirer  that  the  mistake  of  fiction, 
when  it  refused  longer  to  be  called  an  art  and  wished 
to  be  known  as  a  science,  was  in  taking  up  the  ob 
solescent  scientific  methods,  and  in  accumulating  facts, 
or  human  documents,  and  deducing  a  case  from  them, 
instead  of  boldly  supposing  a  case,  as  the  new  science 
did,  and  then  looking  about  for  occurrences  to  verify  it. 

The  philosopher  said,  Exactly ;  this  was  the  very 
thing  he  was  contending  for.  The  documents  should  be 
collected  in  support  of  the  hypothesis;  the  hypothesis 
should  not  be  based  on  documents  already  collected. 
First  the  inference,  then  the  fact ;  was  not  that  the  new 
scientific  way?  It  looked  like  it;  and  it  seemed  as  if 
the  favorite  literature  of  the  new  reading  public  were 
quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  new  science.  Its  bold  events, 
its  prodigious  characters,  its  incredible  motives,  were 
not  they  quite  of  the  nature  of  the  fearless  conjecture 
which  imagined  long  and  short  electric  waves  and  then 
spread  a  mesh  of  wire  to  intercept  them  and  seize  their 
message  ? 

213 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

The  hardy  inquirer  demanded :  Then  if  so,  why  de 
spise  the  literature  of  the  new  reading  public?  Why 
despise  the  new  reading  public,  anyway? 

The  philosopher  responded  that  he  despised  nothing, 
not  even  a  thing  so  unphilosophical  as  modern  science. 
He  merely  wished  his  interpellant  to  observe  again  that 
the  unification  of  the  literary  spirit  and  the  scientific 
spirit  was  degrading  the  literary  man  to  the  level  of  the 
scientific  man.  He  thought  this  was  bad  for  the  small 
remnant  of  mankind,  who  in  default  of  their  former 
idolatry  might  take  to  the  worship  of  themselves.  Now, 
however  bad  a  writer  might  be,  it  was  always  well  for 
the  reader  to  believe  him  better  than  himself.  If  we 
had  not  been  brought  up  in  this  superstition,  what 
would  have  become  of  the  classics  of  all  tongues  ?  But 
for  this,  what  was  to  prevent  the  present  company  from 
making  a  clearance  of  three-fourths  of  the  surrounding 
shelves  and  feeding  that  dying  flame  on  the  hearth  ? 

At  this  the  host,  who  had  been  keeping  himself  in  a 
modest  abeyance,  came  forward  and  put  some  sticks  on 
the  fire.  He  said  he  would  like  to  see  any  one  touch 
his  bindings;  which  seemed  to  be  his  notion  of  books. 
N"obody  minded  him ;  but  one  of  those  dutyolators,  who 
abound  in  a  certain  sex,  asked  the  philosopher  what  he 
thought  we  ought  to  do  for  the  maintenance  of  author- 
worship  among  us. 

He  answered,  he  had  not  thought  of  that;  his  mind 
had  been  fixed  upon  the  fact  of  its  decay.  But  per 
haps  something  could  be  done  by  looking  up  the  author 
whose  book  had  sold  least  during  the  season,  and  ask 
ing  him  candidly  whether  he  would  not  like  to  be  paid 
the  divine  honors  now  going  begging  from  one  big 
seller  to  another ;  for  the  decay  of  author-worship  must 
be  as  much  from  the  indifference  of  the  authors  as  from 
the  irreverence  of  the  readers.  If  such  a  low-selling 

214 


ABOUND    A    KAi  NY-DAY    FIRE 

author  did  not  seem  to  regard  it  as  rather  invidious, 
then  pay  him  the  divine  honors;  it  might  be  a  whole 
some  and  stimulating  example;  but  perhaps  we  should 
afterward  have  the  demigod  on  our  hands.  Something 
might  be  safelier  done  by  writing,  as  with  the  present 
company,  and  inquiring  into  "  the  present  condition  of 
polite  learning."  This  would  keep  the  sacred  flame 
alive,  and  give  us  the  comfort  of  refined  association  in 
an  exquisite  moment  of  joy  from  the  sense  of  our  su 
periority  to  other  people.  That,  after  all,  was  the 
great  thing. 

The  company  drew  a  little  closer  round  the  fire. 
The  rain  beat  upon  the  panes,  and  the  wind  swept  the 
wet  leaves  against  them,  while  each  exhaled  a  sigh  of 
aspiration  not  unmixed  with  a  soft  regret. 


XXII 

THE    ADVANTAGES    OF    QUOTATIONAL    CRITICISM 

THE  talk  round  the  Easy  Chair  one  day  was  of 
that  strange  passion  for  reading  which  has  of  late  pos 
sessed  the  public,  and  the  contagion  or  infection  by 
which  it  has  passed  to  hundreds  of  thousands  who  never 
read  before;  and  then  the  talk  was  of  how  this  pro 
digious  force  might  be  controlled  and  turned  in  the 
right  way :  not  suffered  to  run  to  waste  like  water  over 
the  dam,  but  directed  into  channels  pouring  upon 
wheels  that  turn  the  mills  of  the  gods  or  something 
like  that.  There  were,  of  course,  a  great  many  words ; 
in  fact,  talk  is  composed  of  words,  and  the  people  at 
that  luncheon  were  there  for  talking  as  well  as  eating, 
and  they  did  not  mind  how  many  words  they  used. 
But  the  sum  of  their  words  was  the  hope,  after  a  due 
season  of  despair,  that  the  present  passion  for  reading 
might  be  made  to  eventuate  in  more  civilization  than 
it  seemed  to  be  doing,  if  it  could  be  brought  back  to 
good  literature,  supposing  it  was  ever  there  in  great 
strength,  and  the  question  was  how  to  do  this. 

One  of  the  company  said  he  had  lately  been  reading 
a  good  many  books  of  Leigh  Hunt's,  and  after  every 
body  had  interrupted  with  "  Delightful !"  "Perfectly 
charming !"  and  the  like,  he  went  on  to  observe  that  one 
of  the  chief  merits  of  Hunt  seemed  to  be  his  aptness  in 
quotation.  That,  he  remarked,  was  almost  a  lost  art 

216 


THE    ADVANTAGES    OF    CRITICISM 

with  critics,  who  had  got  to  thinking  that  they  could 
tell  better  what  an  author  was  than  the  author  him 
self  could.    Like  every  other  power  disused,  the  power 
of  apt  quotation  had  died,  and  there  were  very  few 
critics  now  who  knew  how  to  quote:  not  one  knew,  as 
Hunt,  or  Lamb,  or  Hazlitt,  or  the  least  of  the  great 
quotational  school  of  critics,  knew.     These  had  perhaps 
overworked  their  gift,  and  might  have  been  justly  ac 
cused,  as  they  certainly  were  accused,  of  misleading 
the  reader  and  making  him  think  that  the  poets,  whose 
best  they  quoted,  putting  the  finest  lines  in  italics  so 
that  they  could  not  be  missed,  were  as  good  throughout 
as  in  the  passages  given.     It  was  this  sense  of  having 
abused  innocence,  or  ignorance,  which  led  to  the  pres 
ent  reaction  in  criticism  no  doubt,  and  yet  the  present 
reaction  was  an  error.     Suppose  that  the  poets  whose 
best  was  given  by  quotation  were  not  altogether  as  good 
as  that  ?     The  critics  never  pretended  they  were ;  they 
were  merely  showing  how  very  good  these  poets  could 
be,  and  at  the  same  time  offering  a  delicate  pleasure 
to  the  reader,  who  could  not  complain  that  his  digestion 
was  overtaxed  by  the  choice  morsels.     If  his  pleasure 
in  them  prompted  him  to  go  to  the  entire  poet  quoted, 
in  the  hope  of  rioting  gluttonously  upon  him,  the  reader 
was  rightly  served  in  one  sense.     In  another,  he  was 
certainly  not  misserved  or  his  time  wasted.     It  would 
be  hard  for  him  to  prove  that  he  could  have  employed 
it  more  profitably. 

Everybody,  more  or  less,  now  sat  up,  and  he  who  had 
the  eye  and  ear  of  the  table  went  on  to  remark  that  he 
had  not  meant  to  make  a  defence  of  the  extinct  school 
of  quotational  criticism.  What  he  really  meant  to  do 
was  to  suggest  a  way  out  of  the  present  situation  in 
which  the  new  multitude  of  voracious  readers  were 
grossly  feeding  upon  such  intellectual  husks  as  swine 

15  217 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

would  not  eat,  and  imagining  themselves  nourished  by 
their  fodder.  There  might  be  some  person  present  who 
could  improve  upon  his  suggestion,  but  his  notion,  as 
he  conceived  it,  was  that  something  might  be  done  in 
the  line  of  quotational  criticism  to  restore  the  great 
poets  to  the  public  favor,  for  he  understood  that  good 
authors  were  now  proportionately  less  read  than  they 
once  were.  He  thought  that  a  pity:  and  the  rest  of 
the  company  joined  in  asking  him  how  he  proposed  to 
employ  the  quotational  method  for  his  purpose. 

In  answering  he  said  that  he  would  not  go  outside 
of  the  English  classics,  and  he  would,  for  the  present, 
deal  only  with  the  greatest  of  these.  He  took  it  for 
granted  that  those  listening  were  all  agreed  that  man 
kind  would  be  advantaged  in  their  minds  or  man 
ners  by  a  more  or  less  familiar  acquaintance  with 
Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Dryden,  Pope, 
Cowper,  Burns,  Byron,  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Shel 
ley,  Keats,  Tennyson,  and  Browning;  he  himself  did 
not  mind  adding  Scott  to  the  list,  whose  poetry  he 
found  much  better  than  his  prose.  To  bring  about  an 
acquaintance  which  might  very  profitably  ripen  into  in 
timacy,  he  would  have  each  of  these  poets  treated  in 
the  whole  measure  of  his  work  as  many  or  most  of 
them  had  been  topically  or  partially  treated  by  the 
quotational  critics.  Some  one  here  made  him  observe 
that  he  was  laying  out  rather  a  large  piece  of  work, 
and  to  this  he  answered,  Not  at  all ;  the  work  had  been 
already  done.  Asked  then,  somewhat  derisively,  why 
it  need  be  done  over  again,  he  explained,  with  a  modesty 
and  patience  which  restored  him  to  the  regard  he  had 
lost  by  the  derision  (all  had  impartially  united  in  it), 
that  though  the  work  had  already  been  done,  there 
needed  some  slight  additions  to  it  which  would  easily 
fit  it  to  his  purpose.  He  was  not  thinking  of  going  in 

218 


THE    ADVANTAGES    OF    CRITICISM 

for  one  of  those  dreadful  series  of  books  which  seemed 
the  dismay  alike  of  publisher  and  reader,  and  required 
rewriting  of  matter  more  than  enough  rewritten.  In 
fact,  he  said,  that  for  his  purpose  the  writing  was  done 
fully  and  probably  better  than  it  could  be  done  again, 
and  it  was  only  the  reading  and  quoting  that  demanded 
editorial  attention. 

Another  said  he  did  not  see  how  that  could  be,  and 
the  inventor  of  the  brave  scheme,  which  was  still  in 
petto,  said  that  he  would  try  to  show  him.  We  had, 
he  contended,  only  too  great  riches  in  the  criticisms  of 
the  poets  open  to  our  choice,  but  suppose  we  took 
Spenser  and  let  Lowell  introduce  him  to  us.  There 
would  be  needed  a  very  brief  biographical  note,  and 
then  some  able  hand  to  intersperse  the  criticism  with 
passages  from  Spenser,  or  with  amplifications  of  the 
existing  quotations,  such  as  would  give  a  full  notion  of 
the  poet's  scope  and  quality.  The  story  of  each  of  his 
poems  could  be  given  in  a  few  words,  where  the  poems 
themselves  could  not  be  given  even  in  part,  and  with 
the  constant  help  of  the  critic  the  reader  could  be  pos 
sessed  of  a  luminous  idea  of  the  poet,  such  as  he  prob 
ably  could  not  get  by  going  to  him  direct,  though  this 
was  not  to  be  deprecated,  but  encouraged,  after  the  pre 
paratory  acquaintance.  The  explanatory  and  illustra 
tive  passages  could  be  interpolated  in  the  text  of  the 
criticism  without  interrupting  the  critic,  and  something 
for  Spenser  might  thus  be  done  on  the  scale  of  what 
Addison  did  for  Milton.  It  was  known  how  those  suc 
cessive  papers  in  the  Spectator  had  rehabilitated  one 
of  the  greatest  English  poets,  or,  rather,  rehabilitated 
the  English  public,  and  restored  the  poet  and  the  pub 
lic  to  each  other.  They  formed  almost  an  ideal  body 
of  criticism,  and  if  they  did  not  embody  all  that  the 
reader  need  know  of  Milton,  they  embodied  so  much 

219 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

that  he  could  no  longer  feel  himself  ignorant  of  Milton. 
In  fact,  they  possesed  him  of  a  high  degree  of  Mil- 
tonian  culture,  which  was  what  one  wanted  to  have 
with  respect  to  any  poet.  They  might  be  extended 
with  still  greater  quotation,  and  if  something  more  yet 
were  needed  the  essay  on  Milton  which  made  Mac- 
aulay's  reputation  might  be  employed  as  a  vessel  to 
catch  the  overrunnings  of  the  precious  ichor. 

Who  could  not  wish  to  know  the  poetry  of  Keats  as 
we  already  knew  his  life  through  the  matchless  essay 
of  Lowell?  That  might  be  filled  out  with  the  most 
striking  passages  of  his  poetry,  simply  let  in  at  appro 
priate  places,  without  breaking  the  flow  of  that  high 
discourse,  and  forming  a  rich  accompaniment  which 
could  leave  no  reader  unpleasured  or  uninstructed. 
The  passages  given  from  the  poet  need  not  be  relevant 
to  the  text  of  the  critic ;  they  might  be  quite  irrelevant 
and  serve  the  imaginable  end  still  better.  For  in 
stance,  some  passages  might  be  given  in  the  teeth  of 
the  critic,  and  made  to  gainsay  what  he  had  been  say 
ing.  This  would  probably  send  the  reader,  if  he  was 
very  much  perplexed,  to  the  poet  himself,  which  was 
the  imaginable  end.  He  might  be  disappointed  one 
way  or  he  might  be  disappointed  the  other  way,  but 
in  the  mean  while  he  would  have  passed  his  time, 
and  he  would  have  instructed  if  he  had  not  amused 
himself. 

It  would  be  very  interesting  to  take  such  a  criticism 
as  that  of  Lowell  on  Dryden  and  give  not  only  the 
fine  things  from  him,  but  the  things  that  counted  for 
the  critic  in  his  interesting  contention  that  Dryden 
failed  of  being  a  prime  poet  because  of  the  great  weight 
of  prose  in  him,  and  very  good  prose;  or,  as  the  critic 
charmingly  put  it,  he  had  wings  that  helped  him  run 
along  the  ground,  but  did  not  enable  him  to  fly.  It 

220 


THE    ADVANTAGES    OF    CRITICISM 

would  be  most  valuable  for  us  to  see  how  Dry  den  was 
a  great  literary  man,  but  not  one  of  the  greatest  poets, 
and  yet  must  bo  ranked  as  a  great  poet.  If  the  balance 
inclined  now  toward  this  opinion,  and  now  against  it, 
very  possibly  the  reader  would  find  himself  impelled 
to  turn  to  the  poet's  work,  and  again  the  imaginable 
end  would  be  served. 

A  listener  here  asked  why  the  talker  went  chiefly  to 
Lowell  for  the  illustration  of  his  theory,  and  was  frank 
ly  answered,  For  the  same  reason  that  he  had  first 
alluded  to  Leigh  Hunt:  because  he  had  lately  been 
reading  him.  It  was  not  because  he  had  not  read  any 
other  criticism,  or  not  that  he  entirely  admired  Low 
ell's;  in  fact,  he  often  found  fault  with  that.  Lowell 
was  too  much  a  poet  to  be  a  perfect  critic.  He  was  no 
more  the  greatest  sort  of  critic  than  Dryden  was  the 
greatest  sort  of  poet.  To  turn  his  figure  round,  he  had 
wings  that  lifted  him  into  the  air  when  he  ought  to  be 
running  along  the  ground. 

The  company  laughed  civilly  at  this  piece  of  luck, 
and  then  they  asked,  civilly  still,  if  Leigh  Hunt  had 
not  done  for  a  great  many  poets  just  what  he  was  pro 
posing  to  have  done.  What  about  the  treatment  of  the 
poets  and  the  quotations  from  them  in  the  volumes  on 
Wit  and  Humor,  Imagination  and  Fancy,  A  Jar  of 
Honey  from  Mount  Ilybla,  and  the  rest?  The  talker 
owned  that  there  was  a  great  deal  about  these  which 
was  to  his  purpose,  but,  upon  the  whole,  the  criticism 
was  too  desultory  and  fragmentary,  and  the  quotation 
was  illustrative  rather  than  representative,  and  so  far 
it  was  illusory.  He  had  a  notion  that  Hunt's  stories 
from  the  Italian  poets  were  rather  more  in  the  line  he 
would  have  followed,  but  he  had  not  read  these  since 
he  was  a  boy,  and  he  was  not  prepared  to  answer  for 
them. 

221 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

One  of  the  company  said  that  she  had  read  those 
Italian  poets  in  Leigh  Hunt's  version  of  them  when 
she  was  a  girl,  and  it  had  had  the  effect  of  making  her 
think  she  had  read  the  poets  themselves,  and  she  had 
not  since  read  directly  Dante,  Petrarch,  Ariosto,  or 
Tasso.  She  regarded  that  as  an  irreparable  injury, 
and  she  doubted  whether,  if  the  great  English  poets 
could  be  introduced  in  that  manner,  very  many 
people  would  pursue  their  acquaintance  for  them 
selves.  They  would  think  they  were  familiar  with 
them  already. 

Yes,  the  talker  assented,  if  that  were  the  scheme, 
but  it  was  not;  or,  at  least,  it  was  only  part  of  the 
scheme.  The  scheme  was  to  give  the  ever-increasing 
multitude  of  readers  a  chance  to  know  something  of 
the  best  literature.  If  they  chose  to  pursue  the  ac 
quaintance,  very  good;  if  they  chose  not  to  pursue  the 
acquaintance,  still  very  good ;  they  could  not  have  made 
it  at  all  without  being  somewhat  refined  and  enlight 
ened.  He  felt  very  much  about  it  as  he  felt  about 
seeing  Europe,  which  some  people  left  unseen  because 
they  could  not  give  all  the  time  to  it  they  would  like. 
He  always  said  to  such  people,  Go  if  they  could  only 
be  gone  a  month.  A  day  in  Rome,  or  London,  or  Paris, 
was  a  treasure  such  as  a  lifetime  at  home  could  not 
lay  up;  an  hour  of  Venice  or  Florence  was  precious; 
a  moment  of  Milan  or  Verona,  of  Siena  or  Mantua,  was 
beyond  price.  So  you  could  not  know  a  great  poet  so 
little  as  not  to  be  enriched  by  him.  A  look  from  a 
beautiful  woman,  or  a  witty  word  from  a  wise  one, 
distinguished  and  embellished  the  life  into  which  it 
fell,  so  that  it  could  never  afterward  be  so  common  as 
it  was  before. 

Why,  it  was  asked  from  a  silence  in  which  all  the 
ladies  tried  to  think  whether  the  speaker  had  her  in 

222 


THE    ADVANTAGES    OF    CRITICISM 

mind  or  not,  and  whether  he  ought  really  to  bo  so  per 
sonal,  why  could  not  Mr.  Morley's  English  Men  of 
Letters  series  be  used  to  carry  out  the  scheme  proposed; 
and  its  proposer  said  he  had  nothing  to  say  against  that, 
except  perhaps  that  the  frames  might  be  too  much  for 
the  pictures.  lie  would  rather  choose  a  critical  essay, 
as  he  had  intimated,  for  the  frame  of  each  picture;  in 
this  sort  of  thing  we  had  an  endless  choice,  both  new 
and  old.  If  he  had  any  preference  it  would  be  for  the 
older-fashioned  critics,  like  Hazlitt  or  perhaps  like  De 
Quincey;  he  was  not  sure,  speaking  without  the  book, 
whether  De  Quincey  treated  authors  so  much  as  topics, 
but  he  had  the  sense  of  wonderful  things  in  him  about 
the  eighteenth  -  century  poets :  things  that  made  you 
think  you  knew  them,  and  that  yet  made  you  burn  to 
be  on  the  same  intimate  terms  with  them  as  De  Quincey 
himself. 

His  method  of  knowing  the  poets  through  the  critics, 
the  sympathetic  critics,  who  were  the  only  real  critics, 
would  have  the  advantage  of  acquainting  the  reader 
with  the  critics  as  well  as  the  poets.  The  critics  got  a 
good  deal  of  ingratitude  from  the  reader  generally, 
and  perhaps  in  their  character  of  mere  reviewers  they 
got  no  more  than  they  merited,  but  in  their  friendly 
function  of  ushers  to  the  good  things,  even  the  best 
things,  in  the  authors  they  were  studying,  they  had  a 
claim  upon  him  which  he  could  not  requite  too  gen 
erously.  They  acted  the  part  of  real  friends,  and  in 
the  high  company  where  the  reader  found  himself 
strange  and  alone,  they  hospitably  made  him  at  home. 
Above  all  other  kinds  of  writers,  they  made  one  feel 
that  he  was  uttering  the  good  things  they  said.  Of 
course,  for  the  young  reader,  there  was  the  danger  of 
his  continuing  always  to  think  their  thoughts  in  their 
terms,  but  there  were  also  great  chances  that  he  would 

223 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

begin  by-and-by  to  think  his  own  thoughts  in  terms  of 
his  own. 

The  more  quotational  the  critics  were,  the  better. 
For  himself  the  speaker  said  that  he  liked  that  old 
custom  of  printing  the  very  finest  things  in  italics  when 
it  came  to  citing  corroborative  passages.  It  had  not 
only  the  charm  of  the  rococo,  the  pathos  of  a  bygone 
fashion,  but  it  was  of  the  greatest  use.  No  one  is  the 
worse  for  having  a  great  beauty  pointed  out  in  the 
author  one  is  reading  or  reading  from.  Sometimes  one 
does  not  see  the  given  beauty  at  first,  and  then  he  has 
the  pleasure  of  puzzling  it  out ;  sometimes  he  never  sees 
it,  and  then  his  life  is  sublimed  with  an  insoluble  co 
nundrum.  Sometimes,  still,  he  sees  what  the  critic 
means,  and  disagrees  with  him.  In  this  case  he  is  not 
likely  to  go  to  the  end  of  his  journey  without  finding  a 
critic  whom  he  agrees  with  about  the  passage  in 
question. 

After  all,  however,  it  was  asked  by  one  that  had  not 
spoken  before  (with  that  fine  air  of  saying  a  novel 
thing  which  people  put  on  who  have  not  spoken  be 
fore),  would  not  the  superficial  knowledge  of  the  poets 
imparted  by  quotational  criticism  result  in  a  sort  of 
pseudo-culture  which  would  be  rather  worse  than  noth 
ing,  a  kind  of  intellectual  plated  ware  or  aBsthetic  near- 
silk? 

The  talker  said  he  thought  not,  and  that  he  had 
already  touched  upon  some  such  point  in  what  he  had 
said  about  going  to  Europe  for  a  few  months.  He 
offered  the  opinion  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
pseudo-culture ;  there  was  culture  or  there  was  not ;  and 
the  reader  of  a  quotational  criticism,  if  he  enjoyed  the 
quotations,  became,  so  far,  cultivated.  It  could  not  be 
said  that  he  knew  the  poets  treated  of,  but  neither  could 
it  be  said  that  he  was  quite  ignorant  of  them.  As  a 

224 


THE    ADVANTAGES     OF    CRITICISM 

matter  of  fact,  he  did  know  them  in  a  fashion,  through 
:i  mind  larger  and  clearer  than  his  own. 

For  this  reason  the  talker  favored  the  reading  of 
criticism,  especially  the  kind  of  criticism  that  quoted. 
He  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  was  no 
just  and  honest  criticism  without  quotation.     The  critic 
was  hound  to  make  out  his  case,  or  else  abdicate  his 
function,  and  he  could  not  make  out  his  case,  either  for 
or  against  an  author,  without  calling  him  to  testify. 
Therefore,  he  was  in  favor  of  quotational  criticism,  for 
fairness'  sake,  as  well  as  for  his  pleasure;  and  it  was 
for  the  extension  of  it  that  he  now  contended.     He 
was  not  sure  that  he  wished  to  send  the  reader  to  the 
authors   quoted   in   all   cases.      The   reader   could  get 
through  the  passages   cited   a   pretty  good   notion   of 
the  authors'  quality,   and  as  for  their  quantity,   that 
was  often  made  up  of  commonplaces  or  worse.     In  the 
case  of  the  old  poets,  and  most  of  the  English  classics, 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  filth  which  the  reader  would 
be  better  for  not  taking  into  his  mind  and  which  the 
most  copiously  quotational  critics  would  hardly  offer 
him.     If  any  one  said  that  without  the  filth  one  could 
not  get  a  fair  idea  of  those  authors,  he  should  be  dis 
posed  to  distinguish,  and  to  say  that  without  the  filth 
one  could  not  get  a  fair  idea  of  their  age,  but  of  them 
selves,  yes.     Their  beauty  and  their  greatness  wore  per 
sonal  to  them;   even  their  dulness  might  be  so;  but 
their  foulness  was  what  had  come  off  on  them  from 
living  at  periods  when  manners  were  foul. 


XXIII 
READING    FOR    A    GRANDFATHER 

A  YOUNG  girl  (much  respected  by  the  Easy  Chair) 
who  had  always  had  the  real  good  of  her  grandfather 
at  heart,  wished  to  make  him  a  Christmas  present  be 
fitting  his  years  and  agreeable  to  his  tastes.  She 
thought,  only  to  dismiss  them  for  their  banality,  of 
a  box  of  the  finest  cigars,  of  a  soft  flannel  dressing- 
gown,  a  bath  robe  of  Turkish  towelling  embroidered  by 
herself,  of  a  velvet  jacket,  and  of  a  pair  of  house  shoes. 
She  decided  against  some  of  these  things  because  he  did 
not  smoke,  because  he  never  took  off  his  walking  coat 
and  shoes  till  he  went  to  bed,  and  because  he  had  an  old 
bath  robe  made  him  by  her  grandmother,  very  short 
and  very  scant  (according  to  her  notion  at  the  chance 
moments  when  she  had  surprised  him  in  it),  from 
which  neither  love  nor  money  could  part  him;  the 
others  she  rejected  for  the  reason  already  assigned. 
Little  or  nothing  remained,  then,  but  to  give  him  books, 
and  she  was  glad  that  she  was  forced  to  this  conclusion 
because,  when  she  reflected,  she  realized  that  his  read 
ing  seemed  to  be  very  much  neglected,  or  at  least  with 
out  any  lift  of  imagination  or  any  quality  of  modernity 
in  it.  As  far  as  she  had  observed,  he  read  the  same  old 
things  over  and  over  again,  and  did  not  know  at  all 
what  was  now  going  on  in  the  great  world  of  literature. 
She  herself  was  a  famous  reader,  and  an  authority 

226 


HEADING    FOR    A    GRANDFATHER 

about  books  with  other  girls,  and  with  the  young  men 
who  asked  her  across  the  afternoon  tea-cups  whether 
she  had  seen  this  or  that  new  book,  and  scrabbled  round, 
in  choosing  between  cream  and  lemon,  to  hide  the  fact 
that  they  had  not  seen  it  themselves.  She  was  there 
fore  exactly  the  person  to  select  a  little  library  of  the 
latest  reading  for  an  old  gentleman  who  was  so  behind 
the  times  as  her  grandfather;  but  before  she  plunged 
into  the  mad  vortex  of  new  publications  she  thought 
she  would  delicately  find  out  his  preferences,  or  if  he 
had  none,  would  try  to  inspire  him  with  a  curiosity 
concerning  these  or  those  new  books. 

"  NowT,  grandfather,"  she  began,  "  you  know  I  al 
ways  give  you  a  Christmas  present." 

"  Yes,  my  dear,"  the  old  gentleman  patiently  as 
sented,  "  I  know  you  do.  You  are  very  thoughtful." 

"  Not  at  all.  If  there  is  anything  I  hate,  it  is  being 
thoughtful.  What  I  like  is  being  spontaneous." 

"  Well,  then,  my  dear,  I  don't  mind  saying  you  are 
very  spontaneous." 

"  And  I  detest  surprises.  If  any  one  wishes  to  make 
a  lasting  enemy  of  me,  let  him  surprise  me.  So  I  am 
going  to  tell  you  now  what  I  am  going  to  give  you.  Do 
you  like  that?" 

"  I  like  everything  you  do,  ray  child." 

"  Well,  this  time  you  will  like  it  better  than  ever.  I 
am  going  to  give  you  books.  And  in  order  not  to  dis 
appoint  you  by  giving  you  books  that  you  have  read 
before,  I  \vant  to  catechise  you  a  little.  Shall  you 
mind  it?" 

"  Oh  no,  but  I'm  afraid  you  won't  find  me  very 
frank." 

"  I  shall  make  you  be.  If  you  are  not  frank,  there 
is  no  fun  in  not  surprising  you,  or  in  not  giving  you 

books  that  you  have  read." 

227 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

"  There  is  something  in  that/'  her  grandfather  as 
sented.  "  But  now,  instead  of  finding  out  what  I  have 
read,  or  what  I  like,  why  not  tell  me  what  I  ought  to 
read  and  to  like?  I  think  I  have  seen  a  vast  deal  of 
advice  to  girls  ahout  their  reading :  why  shouldn't  the 
girls  turn  the  tables  and  advise  their  elders?  I  often 
feel  the  need  of  advice  from  girls  on  all  sorts  of  sub 
jects,  and  you  would  find  me  very  grateful,  I  believe." 

The  girPs  eyes  sparkled  and  then  softened  toward 
this  docile  ancestor.  "  Do  you  really  mean  it,  grand 
father  ?  It  would  be  fun  if  you  did." 

"But  I  should  want  it  to  be  serious,  my  dear.  I 
should  be  glad  if  your  good  counsel  could  include  the 
whole  conduct  of  life,  for  I  am  sensible  sometimes  of 
a  tendency  to  be  silly  and  wicked,  which  I  am  sure  you 
could  help  me  to  combat." 

"  Oh,  grandfather,"  said  the  girl,  tenderly,  "  yon 
know  that  isn't  true!" 

"  Well,  admit  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  it  isn't. 
My  difficulty  in  regard  to  reading  remains,  and  there 
you  certainly  could  help  me.  At  moments  it  seems  to 
me  that  I  have  come  to  the  end  of  my  line." 

The  old  gentleman's  voice  fell,  and  she  could  no 
longer  suspect  him  of  joking.  So  she  began,  "  Why, 
what  have  you  been  reading  last  ?" 

"  Well,  my  dear,  I  have  been  looking  into  the  Spec 
tator  a  little." 

"  The  London  Spectator?  Jim  says  they  have  it  at 
the  club,  and  he  swears  by  it.  But  I  mean,  what  books ; 
and  that's  a  weekly  newspaper,  or  a  kind  of  review, 
isn't  it?" 

"  The  Spectator  I  mean  was  a  London  newspaper, 
and  it  was  a  kind  of  review,  but  it  was  a  daily.  Is 
it  possible  that  you've  never  heard  of  it  ?"  The  young 
girl  shook  her  head  thoughtfully,  regretfully,  but  upon 

228 


BEADING    FOE    A    GRANDFATHER 

the  whole  not  anxiously;  she  was  not  afraid  that  any 
important  thing  in  literature  had  escaped  her.  "  But 
you've  heard  of  Addison,  and  Steele,  and  Pope,  and 
Swift?" 

"  Oh  yes,  we  had  them  at  school,  when  we  were  read 
ing  Henry  Esmond;  they  all  came  into  that.  And  I 
rememher,  now :  Colonel  Esmond  wrote  a  number  of  the 
Spectator  for  a  surprise  to  Beatrix;  but  I  thought  it 
was  all  a  make-up." 

"  And  you  don't  know  about  Sir  Koger  de  Coverley  ?" 

"  Of  course  I  do !  It's  what  the  English  call  the 
Virginia  Reel.  But  why  do  you  ask?  I  thought  we 
were  talking  about  your  reading.  I  don't  see  how  you 
could  get  an  old  file  of  a  daily  newspaper,  but  if  it 
amuses  you !  7s  it  so  amusing  ?" 

"  It's  charming,  but  after  one  has  read  it  as  often 
as  I  have  one  begins  to  know  it  a  little  too  well." 

"  Yes ;  and  what  else  have  you  been  reading  ?" 

"Well,  Leigh  Hunt  a  little  lately.  He  continues 
the  old  essayist  tradition,  and  he  is  gently  delight 
ful." 

"Never  heard  of  him!"  the  girl  frankly  declared. 

"  He  was  a  poet,  too,  and  he  wrote  the  Story  of 
Rimini — about  Paolo  and  Francesca,  you  know." 

"  Oh,  there  you're  away  off,  grandfather !  Mr. 
Philips  wrote  about  them;  and  that  horrid  D'Annunzio. 
Why,  Duse  gave  D'Annunzio's  play  last  winter !  What 
are  you  thinking  of  ?" 

"  Perhaps  I  am  wandering  a  little,"  the  grandfather 
meekly  submitted,  and  the  girl  had  to  make  him  go  on. 

"  Do  you  read  poetry  a  great  deal  ?"  she  asked,  and 
she  thought  if  his  taste  was  mainly  for  poetry,  it  would 
simplify  the  difficulty  of  choosing  the  books  for  her 
present. 

"  Well,  I'm  rather  returning  to  it.    I've  been  looking 

229 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

into  Crabbe  of  late,  and  I  have  found  him  full  of  a 
quaint  charm." 

"Crabbe?  I  never  neard  of  him!"  she  owned  as 
boldly  as  before,  for  if  he  had  been  worth  hearing  of, 
she  knew  that  she  would  have  heard  of  him.  "  Don't 
you  like  Kipling  ?" 

"Yes,  when  he  is  not  noisy.  I  think  I  prefer  Will 
iam  Watson  among  your  very  modern  moderns." 

"  Why,  is  Tie  living  yet  ?  I  thought  he  wrote  ten  or 
fifteen  years  ago!  You  don't  call  "him  modern!  You 
like  Stevenson,  don't  you  ?  lie's  a  great  stylist ;  every 
body  says  he  is,  and  so  is  George  Meredith.  You  must 
like  Urn*" 

"  He's  a  great  intellect,  but  a  little  of  him  goes  al 
most  as  long  a  way  as  a  little  of  Browning.  I  think 
I  prefer  Henry  James." 

"  Oh  yes,  he's  just  coming  up.  He's  the  one  that 
has  distinction.  But  the  people  who  write  like  him  are 
a  great  deal  more  popular.  They  have  all  his  distinc 
tion,  and  they  don't  tax  your  mind  so  much.  But  don't 
let's  get  off  on  novelists  or  there's  no  end  to  it.  Who 
are  really  your  favorite  poets  ?" 

"  Well,  I  read  Shakespeare  rather  often,  and  I  read 
Dante  by  fits  and  starts;  and  I  do  not  mind  Milton 
from  time  to  time.  I  like  Wordsworth,  and  I  like 
Keats  a  great  deal  better;  every  now  and  then  I  take 
up  Cowper  with  pleasure,  and  I  have  found  myself 
going  back  to  Pope  with  real  relish.  And  Byron ;  yes, 
Byron !  But  I  shouldn't  advise  your  reading  Don 
Juan." 

"  That's  an  opera,  isn't  it  ?  What  they  call  '  Don 
Giovanni.'  I  never  heard  of  any  such  poem." 

"  That  shows  how  careful  you  have  been  of  your 
reading." 

"  Oh,  we  read  everything  nowadays — if  it's  up  to 
230 


READING    FOR    A    GRANDFATHER 

date;  and  if  Don  Juan  had  been,  you  may  be  sure  I 
would  have  heard  of  it.  I  suppose  you  like  Ten 
nyson,  and  Longfellow,  and  Emerson,  and  those  old 
poets  ?" 

"  Are  they  old  ?  They  used  to  be  so  new !  Yes,  I 
like  them,  and  I  like  Whittier  and  some  things  of 
Bryant's." 

At  the  last  two  names  the  girl  looked  vague,  but  she 
said :  "  Oh  yes,  I  suppose  so.  And  I  suppose  you  like 
the  old  dramatists  ?" 

"  Some  of  them  —  Marlowe,  and  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher:  a  few  of  their  plays.  But  I  can't  stand 
most  of  the  Elizabethans;  I  can't  stand  Ben  Jonson 
at  all." 

"  Oh  yes — i  Rasselas.'  I  can't  stand  him  either, 
grandfather.  I'm  quite  with  you  about  Ben  Jonson. 
(  Too  much  Johnson,'  you  know." 

The  grandfather  looked  rather  blank.  "  Too  differ 
ent  Johnsons,  I  think,  my  dear.  But  perhaps  you 
didn't  mean  the  Elizabethans;  perhaps  you  mean  the 
dramatists  of  the  other  Johnson's  time.  Well,  I  like 
Sheridan  pretty  well,  though  his  wit  strikes  me  as 
mechanical,  and  I  really  prefer  Goldsmith ;  in  his  case, 
I  prefer  his  Vicar  of  Wakcfirld,  and  his  poems  to 
his  plays.  Plays  are  not  very  easy  reading,  unless  they 
are  the  very  best.  Shakespeare's  are  the  only  plays 
that  one  wants  to  read." 

The  young  girl  held  up  her  charming  chin,  with  the 
air  of  keeping  it  above  water  too  deep  for  her.  "  And 
Ibsen  ?"  she  suggested.  "  I  hope  you  despise  Ibsen  as 
much  as  I  do.  He's  clear  gone  out  now,  thank  goocT- 
ness !  Don't  you  think  Ghosts  was  horrid  ?" 

(i  It's  dreadful,  my  dear ;  but  I  shouldn't  say  it  was 
horrid.  N~o,  I  don't  despise  Ibsen;  and  I  have  found 
Mr.  Pinero's  plays  good  reading." 

231 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

"  Oh,"  the  girl  said,  getting  her  foot  on  the  ground. 
"  '  The  Gay  Lord  Quex  ' ;  Miss  Vanbrugh  was  great  in 
that.  But  now  don't  get  off  on  the  theatre,  grandfather, 
or  there  will  be  no  end  to  it.  Which  of  the  old,  old 
poets — before  Burns  or  Shelley  even — do  you  like  ?" 

"  Well,  when  I  was  a  boy,  I  read  Chaucer,  and  liked 
him  very  much ;  and  the  other  day  when  I  was  looking 
over  Leigh  Hunt's  essays,  I  found  a  number  of  them 
about  Chaucer  with  long,  well-chosen  extracts;  and  I 
don't  know  when  I've  found  greater  pleasure  in  poetry. 
If  I  must  have  a  favorite  among  the  old  poets,  I  will 
take  Chaucer.  Of  course,  Spenser  is  rather  more  mod 


ern." 


"  Yes,  but  I  can't  bear  his  agnosticism,  can  you  ? 
And  I  hate  metaphysics,  anyway." 

The  grandfather  looked  bewildered;  then  he  said, 
"  Now,  I'm  afraid  we  are  getting  too  much  Spenser." 

The  girl  went  off  at  a  tangent.  "  Don't  you  just 
love  Mr.  Gillette  in  '  Sherlock  Holmes '  ?  There's  a 
play  I  should  think  you  would  like  to  read!  They 
say  there's  a  novel  been  made  out  of  it.  I  Avish  I  could 
get  hold  of  it  for  you.  Well,  go  on,  grandfather !" 

"  No,  my  dear,  it's  for  you  to  go  on.  But  don't  you 
think  you've  catechised  me  sufficiently  about  my  read 
ing?  You  must  find  it  very  old-fashioned." 

"No,  not  at  all.  I  like  old  things  myself.  The 
girls  are  always  laughing  at  me  because  I  read  George 
Eliot,  and  Dickens,  and  Thackeray,  and  Charles  Keade, 
and  Wilkie  Collins,  and  those  back  numbers.  But  I 
should  say,  if  I  said  anything,  that  you  were  rather 
deficient  in  fiction,  grandfather.  You  seem  to  have 
read  everything  but  novels." 

"  Is  that  so  ?  I  was  afraid  I  had  read  nothing  but 
novels.  I — " 

"  Tell  me  what  novels  you  have  read,"  she  broke  in 

232 


READING    FOR    A    GRANDFATHER 

upon  him  imperatively.     u  The  ones  you  consider  the 
greatest." 

The  grandfather  had  to  think.  "  It  is  rather  a  long 
list — so  long  that  I'm  ashamed  of  it.  Perhaps  I'd 
better  mention  only  the  very  greatest,  like  Don  Quixote, 
and  Gil  Bias,  and  Wilhelm  Meisler,  and  The  Vicar 
of  Wakeficld,  and  Clarissa  Harlowe,  and  Emma,  and 
Pride  and  Prejudice,  and  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor, 
and  I  Promessi  Sposi,  and  Belinda,  and  Frankenstein, 
and  Chartreuse  de  Parme,  and  Cesar  Birotteau,  and 
The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  and  David  Copperfield, 
and  Pendennis,  and  The  Scarlet  Letter,  and  Blithedale 
Romance,  and  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  and  M id- 
dlemarch,  and  Smoke,  and  Fathers  and  Sons,  and 
A  Nest  of  Nobles,  and  War  and  Peace,  and  Anna 
Karenina,  and  Resurrection,  and  Dona  Perfccta,  and 
Marta  y  Maria,  and  I  Malavoylia,  and  T/te  Return 
of  the  Native,  and  L'Assomoir,  and  Madame  Bovary, 
and  Tfte  AwTeward  Age,  and  77i-e  Grandissimes — arid 
most  of  the  other  books  of  the  same  authors.  Of  course, 
IVe  read  many  more  perhaps  as  great  as  these,  that  1 
can't  think  of  at  the  moment." 

The  young  girl  listened,  in  a  vain  effort  to  follow  her 
agile  ancestor  in  and  out  of  the  labyrinths  of  his  fa 
vorite  fiction,  most  of  which  she  did  not  recognize  by 
the  names  he  gave  and  some  of  which  she  believed  to 
be  very  shocking,  in  a  vague  association  of  it  with  deep 
ly  moralized,  denunciatory  criticisms  which  she  had 
read  of  the  books  or  the  authors.  Upon  the  whole,  she 
was  rather  pained  by  the  confession  which  his  read 
ing  formed  for  her  grandfather,  and  she  felt  more  than 
ever  the  necessity  of  undertaking  his  education,  or  at 
least  his  reform,  in  respect  to  it.  She  was  glad  now 
that  she  had  decided  to  give  him  books  for  a  Christmas 
present,  for  there  was  no  time  like  Christmas  for  good 

16  233 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

resolutions,  and  if  her  grandfather  was  ever  going  to 
turn  over  a  new  leaf,  this  was  the  very  hour  to  help  him 
do  it. 

She  smiled  very  sweetly  upon  him,  so  as  not  to  alarm 
him  too  much,  and  said  she  had  never  been  so  much 
interested  as  in  knowing  what  hooks  he  really  liked. 
But  as  he  had  read  all  those  he  named — 

"  Oh,  dozens  of  times !"  he  broke  in. 

Then  perhaps  he  would  leave  it  to  her  to  choose  an 

entirely  new  list  for  him,  so  that  he  could  have  some 
thing  freshly  entertaining;  she  did  not  like  to  say 
more  edifying  for  fear  of  hurting  his  feelings,  and 
taking  his  silence  for  consent  she  went  up  and  kissed 
him  on  his  bald  head  and  ran  away  to  take  the  matter 
under  immediate  advisement.  Her  notion  then  was  to 
look  over  several  lists  of  the  world's  best  hundred  books 
which  she  had  been  keeping  by  her,  but  when  she  came 
to  compare  them,  she  found  that  they  contained  most 
of  the  books  he  had  mentioned,  besides  many  others. 
It  would  never  do  to  give  him  any  one  of  these  libraries 
of  the  best  hundred  books  for  this  reason,  and  for  the 
reason  that  a  hundred  books  would  cost  more  of  her 
grandfather's  money  than  she  felt  justified  in  spending 
on  him  at  a  season  when  she  had  to  make  so  many  other 
presents. 

Just  when  she  was  at  her  wit's  end,  a  sudden  inspira 
tion  seized  her.  She  pinned  on  her  hat,  and  put  on  her 
new  winter  jacket,  and  went  out  and  bought  the  last 
number  of  The  Bookworm.  At  the  end  of  this  period 
ical  she  had  often  got  suggestions  for  her  own  read 
ing,  and  she  was  sure  that  she  should  find  there  the 
means  of  helping  her  poor  grandfather  to  a  better  taste 
in  literature  than  he  seemed  to  have.  So  she  took  the 
different  letters  from  Chicago,  San  Francisco,  Denver, 
Cincinnati,  New  Orleans,  Cleveland,  Buffalo,  Boston, 

234 


READING    FOR    A    GRANDFATHER 

Philadelphia,  and  up  -  town  and  down  -  town  in  New 
York,  giving  the  best-selling  books  of  the  month  in  all 
those  places,  and  compiled  an  eclectic  list  from  them, 
which  she  gave  to  her  bookseller  with  orders  to  get  them 
as  nearly  of  the  same  sizes  and  colors  as  possible.  He 
followed  her  instructions  with  a  "great  deal  of  taste 
and  allowed  her  twenty-five  per  cent,  off,  which  she 
applied  toward  a  wedding-present  she  would  have  to 
give  shortly.  In  this  way  she  was  able  to  provide  her 
grandfather  for  the  new  year  with  reading  that  every 
body  was  talking  about,  and  that  brought  him  up  to 
date  with  a  round  turn. 


XXIV 

SOME    MOMENTS    WITH    THE    MUSE 

AMONG  the  many  letters  which  the  Easy  Chair  has 
received  after  its  conference  on  the  state  of  poetry, 
one  of  most  decided  note  was  from  a  writer  con 
fessing  herself  of  the  contrary  -  minded.  "  I  love 
some  children,  but  not  childhood  in  general  mere 
ly  because  it  is  childhood.  So  I  love  some  poems 
rather  than  poetry  in  general  just  because  it  is  poetry. 
...  I  object  to  the  tinkle.  I  object  to  the  poetic 
license  which  performs  a  Germanic  divorce  between 
subject  and  verb,  so  that  instead  of  a  complete  thought 
which  can  be  mastered  before  another  is  set  before  the 
brain,  there  is  a  twist  in  the  grammatical  sequence 
that  requires  a  conscious  effort  of  will  to  keep  the  orig 
inal  thread.  The  world  is  too  busy  to  do  this ;  reading 
must  be  a  relaxation,  not  a  study.  .  .  .  When  poetry 
conforms  in  its  mental  tone  to  the  spirit  of  the  times; 
when  it  reflects  the  life  and  more  or  less  the  common 
thought  of  the  day,  then  more  of  the  common  people 
will  read  it." 

There  were  other  things  in  this  letter  which  seemed 
to  us  of  so  much  importance  that  we  submitted  it  as  a 
whole  to  a  Woman's  Club  of  our  acquaintance.  The 
nine  ladies  composing  the  club  were  not  all  literary,  but 
they  were  all  of  aesthetic  pursuits,  and  together  they 
brought  a  good  deal  of  culture  to  bear  on  the  main 

236 


SOME    MOMENTS    WITH    THE    MUSE 

points  of  the  letter.  They  were  not  quite  of  one  mind, 
but  they  were  so  far  agreed  that  what  they  had  to  say 
might  be  fairly  regarded  as  a  consensus  of  opinion.  We 
will  not  attempt  to  report  their  remarks  at  any  length — 
they  ran  to  all  lengths — but  in  offering  a  resume  of 
what  they  variously  said  to  a  sole  effect,  we  will  do 
what  we  can  to  further  the  cause  they  joined  in  de 
fending. 

The  Muses — for  we  will  no  longer  conceal  that  this 
Woman's  Club  was  composed  of  the  tuneful  Xine — ac 
knowledged  that  there  was  a  great  deal  in  what  their 
contrary-minded  sister  said.  They  did  not  blame  her 
one  bit  for  the  way  she  felt;  they  would  have  felt  just 
so  themselves  in  her  place;  but  being  as  it  were  pro 
fessionally  dedicated  to  the  beautiful  in  all  its  estab 
lished  forms,  they  thought  themselves  bound  to  direct 
her  attention  to  one  or  two  aspects  of  the  case  which 
she  had  apparently  overlooked.  They  were  only  sorry 
that  she  was  not  there  to  take  her  own  part;  and  they 
confessed,  in  her  behalf,  that  it  was  ridiculous  for 
poetry  to  turn  the  language  upside  down,  and  to  take 
it  apart  and  put  it  together  wrong-end  to,  as  it  did.  If 
anybody  spoke  the  language  so,  or  in  prose  wrote  it  so, 
they  would  certainly  be  a  fool ;  but  the  Muses  wished 
the  sister  to  observe  that  every  art  existed  by  its  con 
vention,  or  by  what  in  the  inoral  world  Ibsen  would  call 
its  life-lie.  If  you  looked  at  it  from  the  colloquial 
standpoint,  music  was  the  absurdest  thing  in  the  world. 
In  the  orchestral  part  of  an  opera,  for  instance,  there 
were  more  repetitions  than  in  the  scolding  of  the  worst 
kind  of  shrew,  and  if  you  were  to  go  about  singing 
what  you  had  to  say,  and  sinking  it  over  and  over,  and 
stretching  it  out  by  runs  and  trills,  or  even  expressing 
yourself  in  recitative  secco,  it  would  simply  set  people 
wild.  In  painting  it  was  worse,  if  anything:  you  had 

237 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

to  make  believe  that  things  two  inches  high  were  life- 
size,  and  that  there  were  relief  and  distance  where 
there  was  nothing  but  a  flat  canvas,  and  that  colors 
which  were  really  like  nothing  in  nature  were  natural. 
As  for  sculpture,  it  was  too  laughable  for  anything, 
whether  you  took  it  in  bass-reliefs  with  persons  stuck 
onto  walls,  half  or  three-quarters  out,  or  in  groups  with 
people  in  eternal  action;  or  in  single  figures,  standing 
on  one  leg  or  holding  out  arms  that  would  drop  off  if 
they  were  not  supported  by  stone  pegs ;  or  sitting  down 
outdoors  bareheaded  where  they  would  take  their  deaths 
of  cold,  or  get  sun-struck,  or  lay  up  rheumatism  to 
beat  the  band,  in  the  rain  and  snow  and  often  without 
a  stitch  of  clothes  on. 

All  this  and  more  the  Muses  freely  conceded  to  the 
position  of  the  contrary-minded  correspondent  of  the 
Easy  Chair,  and  having  behaved  so  handsomely,  they 
felt  justified  in  adding  that  her  demand  seemed  to 
them  perfectly  preposterous.  It  was  the  very  essence 
and  office  of  poetry  not  to  conform  to  "  the  mental  tone 
and  spirit  of  the  times  " ;  and  though  it  might  very  well 
reflect  the  life,  it  must  not  reflect  "  the  common  thought 
of  the  day  "  upon  pain  of  vulgarizing  and  annulling 
itself.  Poetry  was  static  in  its  nature,  and  its  busi 
ness  was  the  interpretation  of  enduring  beauty  and 
eternal  veracity.  If  it  stooped  in  submission  to  any 
such  expectation  as  that  expressed,  and  dedicated  itself 
to  the  crude  vaticination  of  the  transitory  emotions  and 
opinions,  it  had  better  turn  journalism  at  once.  It  had 
its  law,  and  its  law  was  distinction  of  ideal  and  ele 
vation  of  tendency,  no  matter  what  material  it  dealt 
with.  It  might  deal  with  the  commonest,  the  cheapest 
material,  but  always  in  such  a  way  as  to  dignify  and 
beautify  the  material. 

Concerning  the  first  point,  that  modern  poetry  was 

238 


SOME    MOMENTS    WITH    THE    MUSE 

wrong  to  indulge  all  those  inversions,  those  transloca- 
tions,  those  ground  and  lofty  syntactical  tumblings 
which  have  mainly  constituted  poetic  license,  the  ladies 
again  relented,  and  allowed  that  there  was  much  to  say 
for  what  our  correspondent  said.  In  fact,  they  agreed, 
or  agreed  as  nearly  as  nine  ladies  could,  that  it  was 
perhaps  time  that  poetry  should,  as  it  certainly  might, 
write  itself  straightforwardly,  with  the  verb  in  its  true 
English  place,  and  the  adjective  walking  soberly  before 
the  noun;  shunning  those  silly  elisions  like  ne'er  and 
o'er,  and,  above  all,  avoiding  the  weak  and  loathly 
omission  of  the  definite  article.  Of  the  tinkle,  by  which 
they  supposed  the  contrary  -  minded  sister  meant  the 
rhyme,  they  said  they  could  very  well  remember  when 
there  was  no  such  thing  in  poetry;  their  native  Greek 
had  got  on  perfectly  well  without  it,  and  even  those 
poets  at  second-hand,  the  "Romans.  They  observed  that 
though  Dante  used  it,  Shakespeare  did  not,  and  ^Milton 
did  not,  in  their  greatest  works ;  and  a  good  half  of  the 
time  the  first  -  rate  moderns  managed  very  well  with 
blank  verse. 

The  Easy  Chair  did  not  like  to  dissent  from  these 
ladies,  both  because  they  were  really  great  authorities 
and  because  it  is  always  best  to  agree  with  ladies  when 
you  can.  Besides,  it  would  not  have  seemed  quite  the 
thing  when  they  were  inclining  to  this  favorable  view 
of  their  sister's  contrary  -  mindedness,  to  take  sides 
against  her.  In  short,  the  Easy  Chair  reserved  its 
misgivings  for  some  such  very  intimate  occasion  as 
this,  when  it  could  impart  them  without  wounding  the 
susceptibilities  of  others,  or  risking  a  painful  snub  for 
itself.  But  it  appeared  to  the  Chair  that  the  Muses 
did  not  go  quite  far  enough  in  justifying  the  conven 
tion,  or  the  life-lie,  by  which  poetry,  as  a  form,  existed. 
They  could  easily  have  proved  that  much  of  the  mys- 

239 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

tical  charm  which  differences  poetry  from  prose  resides 
in  its  license,  its  syntactical  acrobatics,  its  affectations 
of  diction,  its  elisions,  its  rhymes.  As  a  man  inverting 
his  head  and  looking  at  the  landscape  between  his  legs 
gets  an  entirely  new  effect  on  the  familiar  prospect,  so 
literature  forsaking  the  wonted  grammatical  attitudes 
really  achieves  something  richly  strange  by  the  novel 
and  surprising  postures  permissible  in  verse.  The 
phrases,  the  lines,  the  stanzas  which  the  ear  keeps 
lingering  in  its  porches,  loath  to  let  them  depart,  are 
usually  full  of  these  licenses.  They  have  a  witchery 
which  could  be  as  little  proved  as  denied;  and  when 
any  poet  proposes  to  forego  them,  and  adhere  rigidly 
to  the  law  of  prose  in  his  rhythm,  he  practises  a  loyalty 
which  is  a  sort  of  treason  to  his  calling  and  will  go 
far  toward  undoing  him. 

While  the  ladies  of  that  club  were  talking,  some  such 
thoughts  as  these  were  in  our  mind,  suggested  by  sum 
mer-long  reading  of  a  dear,  delightful  poet,  altogether 
neglected  in  these  days,  who  deserves  to  be  known  again 
wherever  reality  is  prized  or  simplicity  is  loved.  It  is 
proof,  indeed,  how  shallow  was  all  the  debate  about 
realism  and  romanticism  that  the  poetic  tales  of  George 
Crabbe  were  never  once  alleged  in  witness  of  the  charm 
which  truth  to  condition  and  character  has,  in  whatever 
form.  But  once,  long  before  that  ineffectual  clamor 
arose,  he  was  valued  as  he  should  be  still.  Edmund 
Burke  was  the  first  to  understand  his  purpose  and  ap 
preciate  his  work.  He  helped  the  poet  not  only  with 
praises  but  with  pounds  till  he  could  get  upon  his  feet. 
He  introduced  Grabbers  verse  to  his  great  friends, 
to  Doctor  Johnson,  who  perceived  at  once  that  he 
would  go  far;  to  Sir  Joshua  Eeynolds,  who  felt  the 
brother-artist  in  him ;  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow, 
whose  oaths  were  harder  than  his  heart  toward  the  fear- 

240 


SOME    MOMENTS    WITH    THE    MUSE 

lessly  fearful  young  singer.  The  sympathy  and  ad 
miration  of  the  highest  and  the  best  followed  him 
through  his  long  life  to  his  death.  The  great  Mr.  Fox 
loved  him  and  his  rhyme,  and  wished  his  tales  to  be 
read  to  him  on  the  bed  he  never  left  alive.  Earl  Grey, 
Lord  Holland,  and  the  brilliant  Canning  wrote  him 
letters  of  cordial  acclaim;  Walter  Scott,  the  generous, 
the  magnanimous,  hailed  him  brother,  and  would  al 
ways  have  his  books  by  him ;  none  of  his  poems  ap 
peared  without  the  warmest  welcome,  the  most  dis 
criminating  and  applausive  criticism  from  Jeffrey,  the 
first  critic  of  his  long  day. 

Crabbe  had  not  only  this  exquisitely  intelligent  hear 
ing,  but  he  was  accepted  on  his  own  terms,  as  a  poet 
who  saw  so  much  beauty  in  simple  and  common  life 
that  he  could  not  help  painting  it.  He  painted  it  in 
pieces  of  matchless  fidelity  to  the  fact,  with  nothing  of 
flattery,  but  everything  of  charm  in  the  likeness.  His 
work  is  the  enduring  witness  of  persons,  circumstances, 
customs,  experiences  utterly  passed  from  the  actual 
world,  but  recognizably  true  with  every  sincere  reader. 
These  tales  of  village  life  in  England  a  hundred  years 
ago  are  of  an  absolute  directness  and  frankness.  They 
blink  nothing  of  the  sordid,  the  mean,  the  vicious,  the 
wicked  in  that  life,  from  which  they  rarely  rise  in  some 
glimpse  of  the  state  of  the  neighboring  gentry,  and  yet 
they  abound  in  beauty  that  consoles  and  encourages. 
They  are  full  of  keen  analysis,  sly  wit,  kindly  humor, 
and  of  a  satire  too  conscientious  to  bear  the  name;  of 
pathos,  of  compassion,  of  reverence,  while  in  unaffected 
singleness  of  ideal  they  are  unsurpassed. 

Will  our  contrary-minded  correspondent  believe  that 
these  studies,  these  finished  pictures,  which  so  perfectly 
"  reflect  the  common  life  ...  of  the  day,"  are  full  of 
the  license,  the  tinkle,  the  German  divorce  of  verb  and 

241 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

subject,  the  twisted  grammatical  sequence  which  her 
soul  ahhors  in  verse  ?  Crabbe  chose  for  his  vehicle  the 
heroic  couplet  in  which  English  poetry  had  jog-trotted 
ever  since  the  time  of  Pope,  as  it  often  had  before; 
and  he  made  it  go  as  like  Pope's  couplet  as  he  could, 
with  the  same  caesura,  the  same  antithetical  balance,  the 
same  feats  of  rhetoric,  the  same  inversions,  and  the 
same  closes  of  the  sense  in  each  couplet.  The  most 
artificial  and  the  most  natural  poets  were  at  one  in  their 
literary  convention.  Yet  such  was  the  freshness  of 
Crabbe's  impulse,  such  his  divine  authority  to  deal 
with  material  unemployed  in  English  poetry  before, 
that  you  forget  all  the  affectations  of  the  outward  con 
vention,  or  remember  them  only  for  a  pleasure  in  the 
quaintness  of  their  use  for  his  purposes.  How  im 
perishable,  anyway,  is  the  interest  of  things  important 
to  the  spirit,  the  fancy,  and  how  largely  does  this  inter 
est  lie  in  the  freshness  of  the  mind  bringing  itself  to 
the  things,  how  little  in  the  novelty  of  the  things! 
The  demand  for  strangeness  in  the  things  them 
selves  is  the  demand  of  the  sophisticated  mind:  the 
mind  which  has  lost  its  simplicity  in  the  process  of 
continuing  unenlightened.  It  is  this  demand  which  be 
trays  the  mediocre  mind  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  the 
sophistication  of  the  English  mind,  and  the  obfuscation 
(which  is  sophistication  at  second-hand)  of  the  Amer 
ican  mind.  The  non-imaginative  person  is  nowhere  so 
much  at  home  as  in  a  voluntary  exile ;  and  this  may  be 
why  it  was  sometime  said  that  travel  is  the  fool's  para 
dise.  For  such  a  person  to  realize  anything  the  terms 
are  that  he  shall  go  abroad,  either  into  an  alien  scene 
or  into  a  period  of  the  past ;  then  he  can  begin  to  have 
some  pleasure.  He  must  first  of  all  get  away  from 
himself,  and  he  is  not  to  be  blamed  for  that;  any  one 
else  would  wish  to  get  away  from  him.  His  exaction  is 

242 


SOME    MOMENTS    WITH    THE    MUSE 

not  a  test  of  merit ;  it  is  merely  the  clew  to  a  psycho 
logical  situation  which  is  neither  so  novel  nor  so  im 
portant  as  to  require  of  our  hard-worked  civilization  the 
production  of  an  order  of  more  inspired  criticism  than 
it  has  worried  along  with  hitherto. 


XXV 

A    NORMAL    HERO   AND    HEROINE    OUT    OF   WORK 

THEY  sat  together  oh  a  bench  in  the  Park,  far  enough 
apart  to  distinguish  themselves  from  the  many  other 
pairs  who  were  but  too  obviously  lovers.  It  could  not 
be  said  quite  that  these  two  were  actually  lovers;  but 
there  was  an  air  of  passionate  provisionality  over  and 
around  them,  a  light  such  as  in  springtime  seems  to 
enfold  the  tree  before  it  takes  the  positive  color  of  bud 
or  blossom ;  and,  with  an  eye  for  literary  material  that 
had  rarely  failed  him,  he  of  the  Easy  Chair  perceived 
that  they  were  a  hero  and  heroine  of  a  kind  which  he 
instantly  felt  it  a  great  pity  he  should  not  have  met 
oftener  in  fiction  of  late.  As  he  looked  at  them  he  was 
more  and  more  penetrated  by  a  delicate  pathos  in  the 
fact  that,  such  as  he  saw  them,  they  belonged  in  their 
fine  sort  to  the  great  host  of  the  Unemployed.  No  one 
else  might  have  seen  it,  but  he  saw,  with  that  iftner  eye 
of  his,  which  compassion  suffused  Jbut  did  not  obscure, 
that  they  were  out  of  a  job,  and  he  was  not  surprise.d 
when  he  heard  the  young  girl  fetch  a  muted  sigh  and 
then  say:  "  ]STo,  they  don't  want  us  anymore.  -  I  don't 
understand  why;  it  is  very  strange;  but  it  is  perfectly 
certain." 

"  Yes,  there's  no  doubt  of  that,"  the  young  man  re 
turned,  in  a  despair  tinged  with  resentment. 

She  was  very  pretty  and  he  was  handsome,  and  they 
244 


A  NORMAL  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

were  both  tastefully  dressed,  with  a  due  deference  to 
fashion,  yet  with  a  personal  qualification  of  the  cut 
and  color  of  their  clothes  which,  if  it  promised  more 
than  it  could  fulfil  in  some  ways,  implied  a  modest  self- 
respect,  better  than  the  arrogance  of  great  social  suc 
cess  or  worldly  splendor.  She  could  have  been  the  only 
daughter  of  a  widowed  father  in  moderate  circum 
stances;  or  an  orphan  brought  up  by  a  careful  aunt, 
or  a  duteous  sister  in  a  large  family  of  girls,  with  whom 
she  shared  the  shelter  of  a  wisely  ordered,  if  somewhat 
crowded,  home ;  or  she  could  have  been  a  serious  student 
of  any  of  the  various  arts  and  sciences  which  girls  study 
now  in  an  independence  compatible  with  true  beauty  of 
behavior.  He  might  have  been  a  young  lawyer  or  doc 
tor  or  business  man;  or  a  painter  or  architect;  or  a 
professor  in  some  college  or  a  minister  in  charge  of  his 
first  parish.  What  struck  the  observer  in  them  and 
pleased  him  was  that  they  seemed  of  that  finer  Amer 
ican  average  which  is  the  best,  and,  rightly  seen, 
the  most  interesting  phase  of  civilized  life  yet 
known. 

"^  "  I  sometimes  think,"  the  girl  resumed,  in  the  silence 
of  her  companion,  "  that  I  made  a  mistake  in  my 
origin  or  my  early  education.  It's  a  great  disadvan 
tage,  in  fiction  nowadays,  for  a  girl  to  speak  gram 
matically,  as  I  always  do,  without  any  trace  of  accent 
or  dialect.  Of  course,  if  I  had  been  high-born  or  low 
born  in  the  olden  times,  somewhere  or  other,  I  shouldn't 
have  to  be  looking  for  a  place  now;  or  if  I  had  been 
unhappily  married,  or  divorced,  or  merely  separated 
.from  my  husband,  the  story-writers  would  have  had 
some  use  for  me.  But  I  have  tried  always  to  be  good 
and  nice  and  ladylike,  and  I  haven't  been  in  a  short 
story  for  ages." 

"  Is  it  so  bad  as  that  ?"  the  young  man  asked,  sadly. 

245 


IMAGINAEY    INTEKVIEWS 

"  Quite.  If  I  could  only  have  had  something  askew 
in  my  heredity,  I  know  lots  of  authoresses  who  would 
have  jumped  at  me.  I  can't  do  anything  wildly  ad 
venturous  in  the  Middle  Ages  or  the  Revolutionary 
period,  because  I'm  so  afraid;  but  I  know  that  in  the 
course  of  modern  life  I've  always  been  fairly  equal  to 
emergencies,  and  I  don't  believe  that  I  should  fail  in 
case  of  trouble,  or  that  if  it  came  to  poverty  I  should 
be  ashamed  to  share  the  deprivations  that  fell  to  my 
lot.  I  don't  think  I'm  very  selfish ;  I  would  be  willing 
to  stay  in  town  all  summer  if  an  author  wanted  me, 
and  I  know  I  could  make  it  interesting  for  his  readers. 
I  could  marry  an  English  nobleman  if  it  was  really 
necessary,  and,  if  I  didn't  like  to  live  in  England  be 
cause  I  was  fond  of  my  own  country,  I  believe  I  could 
get  him  to  stay  here  half  the  time  with  me;  and  that 
would  appeal  to  a  large  class.  I  don't  know  whether  I 
would  care  to  be  rescued  a  great  deal ;  it  would  depend 
upon  what  it  was  from.  But  I  could  stand  a  great 
deal  of  pain  if  need  be,  and  I  hope  that  if  it  came  to 
anything  like  right  or  wrong  I  should  act  conscientious 
ly.  In  society,  I  shouldn't  mind  any  amount  of  dancing 
or  dining  or  teaing,  and  I  should  be  willing  to  take 
my  part  in  the  lighter  athletics.  But,"  she  ended,  as 
she  began,  with  a  sigh,  "  I'm  not  wanted." 

"  Yes,  I  see  what  you  mean,"  the  young  man  said, 
with  a  thoughtful  knot  between  his  brows.  "  I'm  not 
wanted  myself,  at  present,  in  the  short  stories;  but  in. 
the  last  dozen  or  so  where  I  had  an  engagement  I  cer 
tainly  didn't  meet  you ;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  be  paired 
off  in  a  story  with  a  heroine  who  has  the  instincts  and 
habits  of  a  lady.  Of  course,  a  hero  is  only  something 
in  an  author's  fancy,  and  I've  no  right  to  be  exacting; 
but  it  does  go  against  me  to  love  a  girl  who  ropes  cat 
tle,  or  a  woman  who  has  a  past,  or  a  husband,  or  some- 

246 


A  NORMAL  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

thing  of  the  kind.  I  always  do  my  best  for  the  author, 
but  I  can't  forget  that  Pm  a  gentleman,  and  it's  dif 
ficult  to  win  a  heroine  when  the  very  idea  of  her  makes 
you  shudder.  I  sometimes  wonder  how  the  authors 
would  like  it  themselves  if  they  had  to  do  what  they 
expect  of  us  in  that  way.  They're  generally  very 
decent  fellows,  good  husbands  and  fathers,  who  have 
married  lady  -  like  girls  and  wouldn't  think  of  asso 
ciating  with  a  shady  or  ignorant  person." 

'  The  authoresses  are  quite  as  inconsistent,"  the  pro 
fessional  heroine  rejoined.  "  They  wouldn't  speak  to 
the  kind  of  young  men  whom  they  expect  a  heroine  to 
be  passionately  in  love  with.  They  must  know  how 
very  oddly  a  girl  feels  about  people  who  are  outside  of 
the  world  she's  been  brought  up  in.  It  isn't  enough  that 
£  man  should  be  very  noble  at  heart  and  do  grand 
things,  or  save  your  life  every  now  and  then,  or  be 
masterful  and  use  his  giant  will  to  make  you  in  love 
^vith  him.  I  don't  see  why  they  can't  let  one  have,  now 
ind  then,  the  kind  of  husbands  they  get  for  themselves. 
For  my  part,  I  should  like  always  to  give  my  heart  to 
a  normal,  sensible,  well-bred,  conscientious,  agreeable 
man  who  could  offer  me  a  pleasant  home — I  wouldn't 
mind  the  suburbs;  and  I  could  work  with  him  and 
work  for  him  till  I  dropped — the  kind  of  man  that  the 
real  world  seems  to  be  so  full  of.  I've  never  had  a 
fair  chance  to  show  what  was  in  me;  I've  always  been 
placed  in  such  a  false  position.  Now  I  have  no  position 
at  all,  not  even  a  false  one !" 

Her  companion  was  silent  for  a  while.  Then  he 
said :  "  Yes,  they  all  seem,  authors  and  authoresses  both, 
to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  constitution  of  our  so 
ciety  is  more  picturesque,  more  dramatic,  more  poetical 
than  any  in  the  world.  We  can  have  the  play  of  all  the 
passions  and  emotions  in  ordinary,  innocent  love-mak- 

247 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

ing  that  other  peoples  can  have  only  on  the  worst 
conditions ;  and  yet  the  story-writers  won't  avail  them 
selves  of  the  beauty  that  lies  next  to  their  hands.  They 
go  abroad  for  impossible  circumstances,  or  they  want  to 
bewitch  ours  with  the  chemistry  of  all  sorts  of  eccentric 
characters,  exaggerated  incentives,  morbid  propensities, 
pathological  conditions,  or  diseased  psychology.  As  I 
said  before,  I  know  I'm  only  a  creature  of  the  story 
teller's  fancy,  and  a  creature  out  of  work  at  that;  but 
I  believe  I  was  imagined  in  a  good  moment — I'm  sure 
you  were — and  I  should  like  an  engagement  in  an  hon 
est,  wholesome  situation.  I  think  I  could  do  creditable 
work  in  it." 

"  I  know  you  could,"  the  heroine  rejoined,  fervently, 
almost  tenderly,  so  that  it  seemed  to  the  listener  there 
was  an  involuntary  rapprochement  of  their  shadowy 
substances  on  the  bench  where  they  floated  in  a  sitting 
posture.  "  I  don't  want  to  be  greedy ;  I  believe  in  liv 
ing  and  letting  live.  I  think  the  abnormal  has  just  as 
good  a  right  to  be  in  the  stories  as  the  normal ;  but  why 
shut  the  normal  out  altogether?  What  I  should  like 
to  ask  the  short-story  writers  is  whether  they  and  their 
readers  are  so  bored  with  themselves  and  the  people 
they  know  in  the  real  world  that  they  have  no  use  for 
anything  like  its  average  in  their  fiction.  It's  impos 
sible  for  us  to  change — " 

"  I  shouldn't  wish  you  to  change,"  the  hero  said,  so 
fondly  that  the  witness  trembled  for  something  more 
demonstrative. 

"  Thank  you !  But  what  I  mean  is,  couldn't  they 
change  a  little  ?  Couldn't  they  give  us  another  trial  ? 
They've  been  using  the  abnormal,  in  some  shape  or 
other,  so  long  that  I  should  think  they  would  find  a 
hero  and  heroine  who  simply  fell  in  love  at  a  dance  or 
a  dinner,  or  in  a  house-party  or  at  a  picnic,  and  worked 

248 


A  NORMAL  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

out  their  characters  to  each  other,  through  the  natural 
worry  and  difficulty,  and  pleasure  and  happiness,  till 
they  got  married — a  relief  from,  well,  the  other  thing. 
I'm  sure  if  they  offered  me  the  chance,  I  could  make 
myself  attractive  to  their  readers,  and  I  believe  I  should 
have  the  charm  of  novelty." 

'  You  would  have  more  than  the  charm  of  novelty," 
the  hero  said,  and  the  witness  trembled  again  for  the 
convenances  which  one  so  often  sees  offended  on  the 
benches  in  the  Park.  But  then  he  remembered  that 
these  young  people  were  avowedly  nice,  and  that  they 
were  morally  incapable  of  misbehavior.  "  And  for  a 
time,  at  least,  I  believe  you — I  believe  we,  for  I  must 
necessarily  be  engaged  with  you — would  succeed.  The 
difficulty  would  be  to  get  the  notion  of  our  employment 
to  the  authors."  It  was  on  the  listener's  tongue  to  say 
that  he  thought  he  could  manage  that,  when  the  hero 
arrested  him  with  the  sad  misgiving,  "  But  they  would 
say  we  were  commonplace,  and  that  would  kill  the 
chance  of  our  ever  having  a  run." 

A  tremendous  longing  filled  the  witness,  a  potent  de 
sire  to  rescue  this  engaging  pair  from  the  dismay  into 
which  they  fell  at  the  fatal  word.  "  No,  no !"  he  con 
jured  them.  "  Not  commonplace.  A  judicious  para 
graph  anticipative  of  your  reappearance  could  be  ar 
ranged,  in  which  you  could  be  hailed  as  the  normal 
hero  and  heroine,  and  greeted  as  a  grateful  relief  from 
the  hackneyed  freaks  and  deformities  of  the  prevalent 
short  story,  or  the  impassioned  paper-doll  pattern  of  the 
mediaeval  men  and  maidens,  or  the  spotted  and  battered 
figures  of  the  studies  in  morbid  analysis  which  pass  for 
fiction  in  the  magazines.  We  must  get  that  luminous 
word  normal  before  the  reading  public  at  once,  and  you 
will  be  rightly  seen  in  its  benign  ray  and  recognized 
from  the  start — yes !  in  advance  of  the  start — for  what 

17  249 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

you  are :  types  of  the  loveliness  of  our  average  life,  the 
fairest  blossoms  of  that  faith  in  human  nature  which 
has  flourished  here  into  the  most  beautiful  and  glorious 
civilization  of  all  times.  With  us  the  average  life  is 
enchanting,  the  normal  is  the  exquisite.  Have  patience, 
have  courage ;  your  time  is  coming  again !" 

It  seemed  to  him  that  the  gentle   shapes  wavered 
in  his  vehement  breath,  and  he  could  not  realize  that  in 
their  alien  realm  they  could  not  have  heard  a  word  he 
uttered.     They  remained  dreamily  silent,  as  if  he  had 
not  spoken,  and  then  the  heroine  said :  "  Perhaps  we 
shall  have  to  wait  for  a  new  school  of   short  -  story 
writers  before  we  can  get  back  into   the  magazines. 
Some  beginner  must  see  in  us  what  has  always  pleased : 
the  likeness  to  himself  or  herself,  the  truth  to  nature, 
the  loyalty  to  the  American  ideal  of  happiness.     He 
will  find  that  we  easily  and  probably  end  well,  and  that 
we're  a  consolation  and  refuge  for  readers,  who  can 
take  heart  from  our  happy  denouements,  when  they 
see  a  family  resemblance  in  us,   and  can  reasonably 
hope  that  if  they  follow  our  examples  they  will  share 
our  blessings.     Authors  can't  really  enjoy  themselves 
in  the  company  of  those  degenerates,  as  I  call  them. 
They're  mostly  as  young  and  right-principled  and  well- 
behaved  as  ourselves,  and,  if  they  could  get  to  know  us, 
we  should  be  the  best  of  friends.     They  would  real 
ize  that  there  was  plenty  of  harmless  fun,  as  well  as 
love,  in  the  world,  and  that  there  was  lots  of  good- 
luck.'7 

"  Like  ours,  now,  with  no  work  and  no  prospect  ot 
it?"  he  returned,  in  his  refusal  to  be  persuaded,  yet 
ready  to  be  comforted. 

Having  set  out  on  that  road,  she  would  not  turn 
back ;  she  persisted,  like  any  woman  who  is  contraried, 
no  matter  how  far  she  ends  from  her  first  position: 

250 


A  NORMAL  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

"  Yes,  like  ours  now.  For  this  is  probably  the  dark 
hour  before  the  dawn.  We  must  wait." 

"  And  perish  in  the  mean  time  ?" 

"  Oh,  we  shall  not  perish,"  she  responded,  heroinical- 
ly.  "  It's  not  for  nothing  that  we  are  immortal,"  and 
as  she  spoke  she  passed  her  translucent  hand  through 
his  arm,  and,  rising,  they  drifted  off  together  and  left 
the  emissary  of  the  Easy  Chair  watching  them  till  they 
mixed  with  the  mists  under  the  trees  in  the  perspective 
of  the  Mall. 


OTHER    ESSAYS 


AUTUMN    IN    THE    COUNTRY    AND    CITY 

IN  the  morning  the  trees  stood  perfectly  still :  yellow, 
yellowish-green,  crimson,  russet,  ~Not  a  pulse  of  air 
stirred  their  stricken  foliage,  but  the  leaves  left  the 
spray  and  dripped  silently,  vertically  down,  with  a 
faint,  ticking  sound.  They  fell  like  the  tears  of  a 
grief  which  is  too  inward  for  any  other  outward  sign ; 
an  absent  grief,  almost  self -forgetful.  By-and-by,  soft 
ly,  very  softly,  as  Xature  does  things  when  she  emulates 
the  best  Art  and  shuns  the  showiness  and  noisiness  of 
the  second-best,  the  wind  crept  in  from  the  leaden  sea, 
which  turned  iron  under  it,  corrugated  iron.  Then  the 
trees  began  to  bond,  and  writhe,  and  sigh,  and  moan ; 
and  their  leaves  flew  through  the  air,  and  blew  and  scut 
tled  over  the  grass,  and  in  an  hour  all  the  boughs  were 
bare.  The  summer,  which  had  been  living  till  then  and 
dying,  was  now  dead. 

That  was  the  reason  why  certain  people  who  had  been 
living  with  it,  and  seemed  dying  in  it,  were  now  in  a 
manner  dead  with  it,  so  that  their  ghosts  were  glad  to 
get  back  to  town,  where  the  ghosts  of  thousands  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  others  were  hustling  in  the 
streets  and  the  trolleys  and  subways  and  elevateds,  and 
shops  and  factories  and  offices,  and  making  believe  to  be 
much  more  alive  than  they  were  in  the  country.  Yet 
the  town,  the  haunt  of  those  harassed  and  hurried 

255 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

spectres,  who  are  not  without  their  illusory  hilarity, 
their  phantasmal  happiness,  has  a  charm  which  we  of 
the  Easy  Chair  always  feel,  on  first  returning  to  it  in 
the  autumn,  and  which  the  representative  of  the  fam 
ily  we  are  imagining  finds  rather  an  impassioned  pleas 
ure  in.  He  came  on  to  E"ew  York,  while  the  others 
lingered  in  a  dim  Bostonian  limbo,  and  he  amused  him 
self  very  well,  in  a  shadowy  sort,  looking  at  those  other 
shades  who  had  arrived  in  like  sort,  or  different,  and 
were  there  together  with  him  in  those  fine  days  just 
preceding  the  election ;  after  which  the  season  broke  in 
tears  again,  and  the  autumn  advanced  another  step 
toward  winter. 

There  is  no  moment  of  the  2sTew  York  year  which  is 
more  characteristic  of  it  than  that  mid-autumnal  mo 
ment,  which  the  summer  and  the  winter  are  equally 
far  from.  Mid-May  is  very  well,  and  the  weather  then 
is  perfect,  but  that  is  a  moment  pierced  with  the  un 
rest  of  going  or  getting  ready  to  go  away.  The  call 
of  the  eld  in  Europe,  or  the  call  of  the  wild  in  New 
port,  has  already  depopulated  our  streets  of  what  is 
richest  and  naturally  best  in  our  city  life;  the  shops, 
indeed,  show  a  fevered  activity  in  the  near-richest  and 
near-best  who  are  providing  for  their  summer  wants  at 
mountain  or  sea-shore ;  but  the  theatres  are  closing  like 
fading  flowers,  and  shedding  their  chorus-girls  on  every 
outward  breeze;  the  tables  d'hote  express  a  relaxed  en 
terprise  in  the  nonchalance  of  the  management  and 
service;  the  hotels  yawn  wearily  from  their  hollow 
rooms;  the  greengroceries  try  to  mask  the  barrenness 
of  their  windows  in  a  show  of  tropic  or  semi-tropic 
fruits;  the  provision-men  merely  disgust  with  their  re 
tarded  displays  of  butcher's  meats  and  poultry. 

But  with  what  a  difference  the  mid-autumn  of  the 
town  welcomes  its  returners!  Ghosts,  we  have  called 

256 


HKOADWAY    AT    XKJHT 


AUTUMN    IN    COUNTRY    AND    CITY 

them,  mainly  to  humor  a  figure  we  began  with,  but 
they  are  ghosts  rather  in  the  meaning  of  revenants, 
which  is  a  good  meaning  enough.  They  must  be  a 
very  aged  or  very  stupid  sort  of  revenants  if  their 
palingenetic  substance  does  not  thrill  at  the  first  night 
ly  vision  of  Broadway,  of  that  fairy  flare  of  electric 
lights,  advertising  whiskeys  and  actresses  and  beers,  and 
luring  the  beholder  into  a  hundred  hotels  and  theatres 
and  restaurants.  It  is  now  past  the  hour  of  roof-gardens 
with  their  songs  and  dances,  but  the  vaudeville  is  in 
full  bloom,  and  the  play-houses  are  blossoming  in  the 
bills  of  their  new  comedies  and  operas  and  burlesques. 
The  pavements  are  filled,  but  not  yet  crowded,  with 
people  going  to  dinner  at  the  tables  d'hote;  the  shop 
windows  glitter  and  shine,  and  promise  a  delight  for 
the  morrow  which  the  morrow  may  or  may  not  realize. 
But  as  yet  the  town  is  not  replete  to  choking,  as  it 
will  be  later,  when  those  who  fancy  they  constitute  the 
town  have  got  back  to  it  from  their  Europes,  their  New- 
ports,  their  Bar  Harbors,  their  Lenoxes,  their  Tuxedos, 
weary  of  scorning  delights  and  living  laborious  days  in 
that  round  of  intellectual  and  moral  events  duly  cele 
brated  in  the  society  news  of  the  Sunday  papers.  Fifth 
Avenue  abounds  in  automobiles  but  does  not  yet  super- 
abound  ;  you  do  not  quite  take  your  life  in  your  hand 
in  crossing  the  street  at  those  corners  where  there  is 
no  policeman's  hand  to  put  it  in.  Everywhere  are  cars, 
carts,  carriages;  and  the  motorist  whirs  through  the  in 
tersecting  streets  and  round  the  corners,  bent  on  suicide 
or  homicide,  and  the  kind  old  trolleys  and  hansoms  that 
once  seemed  so  threatening  have  almost  become  so  many 
arks  of  safety  from  the  furious  machines  replacing 
them.  But  a  few  short  years  ago  the  passer  on  the 
Avenue  could  pride  himself  on  a  count  of  twenty  auto 
mobiles  in  his  walk  from  Murray  Hill  to  the  Plaza; 

257 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

now  he  can  easily  number  hundreds,  without  an  emo 
tion  of  self-approval. 

But  their  abundance  is  only  provisional,  a  mere  fore 
cast  of  the  superabundance  to  come.  All  things  are 
provisional,  all  sights,  all  sounds,  and  this  forms  the 
peculiar  charm  of  the  hour,  its  haunting  and  winning 
charm.  If  you  take  the  omnibus  -  top  to  be  trundled 
whiningly  up  to  one  of  the  farther  east-side  entrances 
of  the  Park,  and  then  dismount  and  walk  back  to  the 
Plaza  through  it,  you  are  even  more  keenly  aware  of 
the  suspensive  quality  of  the  time.  The  summer,  whicli 
you  left  for  dead  by  mountain  or  sea-shore,  stirs  with 
lingering  consciousness  in  the  bland  air  of  the  great 
pleasanee.  Many  leaves  are  yet  green  on  the  trees, 
and  where  they  are  not  green  and  not  there  they  are 
gay  on  the  grass  under  the  trees.  There  are  birds,  not, 
to  be  sure,  singing,  but  cheerfully  chirping;  and  there 
are  occasional  blazons  of  courageous  flowers ;  the  benches 
beside  the  walks,  which  the  northern  blasts  will  soon 
sweep  bare,  are  still  kept  by  the  lovers  and  loafers  who 
have  frequented  them  ever  since  the  spring,  and  by  the 
nurses,  who  cumber  the  footway  before  them  with  their 
perambulators.  The  fat  squirrels  waddle  over  the  as 
phalt,  and  cock  the  impudent  eye  of  the  sturdy  beggar 
at  the  passer  whom  they  suspect  of  latent  peanuts;  it 
is  high  carnival  of  the  children  with  hoops  and  balls; 
it  is  the  supreme  moment  of  the  saddle-donkeys  in  the 
by-paths,  and  the  carriage-goats  in  the  Mall,  and  of 
the  rowboats  on  the  ponds,  which  presently  will  be  with 
drawn  for  their  secret  hibernation,  where  no  man  can 
find  them  out.  When  the  first  snow  flies,  even  while 
it  is  yet  poising  for  flight  in  the  dim  pits  of  air,  all 
these  delights  will  have  vanished,  and  the  winter,  which 
will  claim  the  city  for  its  own  through  a  good  four 

months,  will  be  upon  it. 

258 


AUTUMN    IN    COUNTRY    AND    CITY 

Always  come  back,  therefore,  if  you  must  come  at 
all,  about  the  beginning  of  November,  and  if  you  can 
manage  to  take  in  Election  Day,  and  especially  Election 
Night,  it  will  not  be  a  bad  notion.  New  York  has  five 
saturnalia  every  year:  New  Year's  Night,  Decoration 
Day,  Fourth  of  July,  Election  Night,  and  Thanksgiv 
ing,  and  not  the  least  of  these  is  Election  Night.  If  it 
is  a  right  first  Tuesday  of  November,  the  daytime 
wind  will  be  veering  from  west  to  south  and  back,  sun 
and  cloud  will  equally  share  the  hours  between  them, 
and  a  not  unnatural  quiet,  as  of  political  passions 
hushed  under  the  blanket  of  the  Australian  ballot,  will 
prevail.  The  streets  will  be  rather  emptied  than  filled, 
and  the  litter  of  straw  and  scrap-paper,  and  the  ordure 
and  other  filth  of  the  great  slattern  town,  will  blow 
agreeably  about  under  your  feet  and  into  your  eyes  and 
teeth.  But  with  the  falling  of  the  night  there  will  be 
a  rise  of  the  urban  spirits;  the  sidewalks  will  thicken 
with  citizens  of  all  ages  and  sexes  and  nations ;  and  if 
you  will  then  seek  some  large  centre  for  the  cinemato 
graphic  dissemination  of  the  election  news,  you  will 
find  yourself  one  of  a  multitude  gloating  on  the  scenes 
of  comedy  and  tragedy  thrown  up  on  the  canvas  to  stay 
your  impatience  for  the  returns.  Along  the  curbstones 
are  stationed  wagons  for  the  sale  of  the  wind  and  string 
instruments,  whose  raw,  harsh  discords  of  whistling  and 
twanging  will  begin  with  the  sight  of  the  vote  from  the 
first  precinct.  Meantime  policemen,  nervously  fondling 
their  clubs  in  their  hands,  hang  upon  the  fringes  of  the 
crowd,  which  is  yet  so  good-natured  that  it  seems  to 
have  no  impulse  but  to  lift  children  on  its  shoulders 
and  put  pretty  girls  before  it,  and  caress  old  women 
and  cripples  into  favorable  positions,  so  that  they  may 
see  better.  You  will  wish  to  leave  it  before  the  club 
bing  begins,  and  either  go  home  to  the  slumbers  which 

259 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

the  whistling  and  twanging  will  duly  attend;  or  join 
the  diners  going  into  or  coming  out  of  the  restaurants, 
or  the  throngs  strolling  down  into  the  fairy  realms  of 
Broadway,  under  the  flare  of  the  whiskeys  and  the  ac 
tresses. 

At  such  a  time  it  is  best  to  be  young,  but  it  is  not  so 
very  bad  to  be  old,  for  the  charm  of  the  hour,  the  air, 
and  the  place  is  such  that  even  the  heart  of  age  must 
rise  a  little  at  it.  What  the  night  may  really  be,  if  it 
is  not  positively  raining,  you  "  do  not  know  or  need  to 
know."  Those  soft  lamps  overhead,  which  might  alike 
seem  let  garlanding  down  from  the  vault  above  or 
flowering  up  from  the  gulfs  below  out  of  a  still  greater 
pyrotechnic  richness,  supply  the  defect,  if  there  is  any, 
of  moon  and  stars.  Only  the  air  is  actual,  the  air  of  the 
New  York  night,  which  is  as  different  from  that  of  the 
London  night  as  from  that  of  the  Paris  night,  or,  for 
all  we  know,  the  St.  Petersburg  night.  At  times  we 
have  fancied  in  its  early  autumnal  tones  something 
Florentine,  something  Venetian,  but,  after  all,  it  is 
not  quite  either,  even  when  the  tones  of  these  are  crud 
est.  It  is  the  subtlest,  the  most  penetrating  expression 
of  the  New  York  temperament;  but  what  that  is,  who 
shall  say?  That  mystic  air  is  haunted  little  from  the 
past,  for  properly  speaking  there  never  was  a  city  so 
unhistorical  in  temperament.  A  record  of  civic  cor 
ruption,  running  back  to  the  first  servants  of  the  Dutch 
Companies,  does  not  constitute  municipal  history,  and 
our  part  in  national  events  from  the  time  we  felt  the 
stirrings  of  national  consciousness  has  not  been  glorious, 
as  these  have  not  been  impressive.  Of  New  York's 
present  at  any  given  moment  you  wish  to  say  in  her 
patient-impatient  slang,  "  Forget  it,  forget  it."  There 
remains  only  the  future  from  which  she  can  derive  that 
temperamental  effect  in  her  night  air;  but,  again,  what 

260 


ELECTION-NIGHT   CROWDS 


AUTUMN    IN    COUNTRY    AND    CITY 

that  is,  who  shall  say?  If  any  one  were  so  daring,  he 
might  say  it  was  confidence  modified  by  anxiety ;  a  rash 
expectation  of  luck  derived  from  immunity  for  past 
transgression;  the  hopes  of  youth  shot  with  youth's 
despairs :  not  sweet,  innocent  youth,  but  youth  knowing 
and  experienced,  though  not  unwilling  to  shun  evil  be 
cause  of  the  bad  morrow  it  sometimes  brings.  No  other 
city  under  the  sun,  we  doubt,  is  so  expressive  of  that 
youth:  that  modern  youth,  able,  agile,  eager,  audacious; 
not  the  youth  of  the  poets,  but  the  youth  of  the  true,  the 
grim  realists. 

Something,  a  faint,  faint  consciousness  of  this,  visits 
even  the  sad  heart  of  age  on  any  New  York  night  when 
it  is  not  raining  too  hard,  and  one  thinks  only  of  get 
ting  indoors,  where  all  nights  are  alike.  But  mostly 
it  comes  when  the  autumn  is  dreaming  toward  winter 
in  that  interlude  of  the  seasons  which  we  call  Indian 
Summer.  It  is  a  stretch  of  time  which  we  have  hand 
somely  bestowed  upon  our  aborigines,  in  compensation 
for  the  four  seasons  we  have  taken  from  them,  like  some 
of  those  Reservations  which  we  have  left  them  in  lieu 
of  the  immeasurable  lands  we  have  alienated.  It  used 
to  be  longer  than  it  is  now ;  it  used  to  be  several  weeks 
long;  in  the  sense  of  childhood,  it  was  almost  months. 
It  is  still  qualitatively  the  same,  and  it  is  more  than 
any  other  time  expressive  of  the  New  York  tempera 
ment,  perhaps  because  we  have  honored  in  the  civic 
ideal  the  polity  of  our  Indian  predecessors,  and  in 
Tammany  and  its  recurrently  triumphant  braves,  have 
kept  their  memory  green.  But  if  this  is  not  so,  the 
spiritual  fact  remains,  and  under  the  sky  of  the  Election 
Night  you  feel  New  York  as  you  do  in  no  other  hour. 
The  sense  extends  through  the  other  autumn  nights  till 
that  night,  sure  to  come,  when  the  pensive  weather 
breaks  in  tears,  and  the  next  day  it  rains  and  rains,  and 

201 


IMAGINAKY    INTERVIEWS 

the  streets  stream  with  the  flood,  and  the  dull  air  reeks 
with  a  sort  of  inner  steam,  hot,  close,  and  sticky  as  a 
brother:  a  brother  whose  wants  are  many  and  whose 
resources  are  few.  The  morning  after  the  storm,  there 
will  be  a  keen  thrill  in  the  air,  keen  but  wholesome  and 
bracing  as  a  good  resolution  and  not  necessarily  more 
lasting.  The  asphalt  has  been  washed  as  clean  as  a 
renovated  conscience,  and  the  city  presses  forward  again 
to  the  future  in  which  alone  it  has  its  being,  with  the 
gay  confidence  of  a  sinner  who  has  forgiven  himself 
his  sins  and  is  no  longer  sorry  for  them. 

After  that  interlude,  when  the  streets  of  the  Ad 
vanced  Vaudeville,  which  we  kr  ow  as  New  York,  begin 
again  and  continue  till  the  Chasers  come  in  late  May, 
there  will  be  many  other  sorts  of  weather,  but  none  so 
characteristic  of  her.  There  will  be  the  sort  of  weather 
toward  the  end  of  January,  when  really  it  seems  as  if 
nothing  else  could  console  him  for  the  intolerable  freez 
ing  and  thawing,  the  snow  upon  snow,  the  rain  upon 
rain,  the  winds  that  soak  him  and  the  winds  that  shrivel 
him,  and  the  suns  that  mock  him  from  a  subtropic  sky 
through  subarctic  air.  We  foresee  him  then  settling 
into  his  arm-chair,  while  the  wind  whistles  as  naturally 
as  the  wind  in  the  theatre  around  the  angles  of  his  lofty 
flat,  and  drives  the  snow  of  the  shredded  paper  through 
the  air  or  beats  it  in  soft  clots  against  the  pane.  He 
turns  our  page,  and  as  he  catches  our  vague  drift,  before 
yielding  himself  wholly  to  its  allure,  he  questions,  as 
readers  like  to  do,  whether  the  writer  is  altogether  right 
in  his  contention  that  the  mid-autumnal  moment  is  the 
most  characteristic  moment  of  the  New  York  year.  Is 
not  the  mid-winter  moment  yet  more  characteristic? 
Tie  conjures  up,  in  the  rich  content  of  his  indoor  re 
moteness,  the  vision  of  the  vile  street  below  his  flat, 
banked  high  with  the  garnered  heaps  of  filthy  snow, 

262 


AUTUMN    IN    COUNTRY    AND    CITY 

which  alternately  freeze  and  thaw,  which  the  rain  does 
not  wash  nor  the  wind  hlow  away,  and  which  the 
shredded  -  paper  flakes  are  now  drifting  higher.  He 
sees  the  foot-passers  struggling  under  their  umbrellas 
toward  the  avenues  where  the  reluctant  trolleys  pause 
jarringly  for  them,  and  the  elevated  trains  roar  along 
the  trestle  overhead ;  where  the  saloon  winks  a  wicked 
eye  on  every  corner;  where  the  signs  of  the  whiskeys 
and  actresses  flare  through  the  thickened  night;  and 
the  cab  tilts  and  rocks  across  the  trolley  rails,  and  the 
crowds  of  hotel-sojourners  seek  the  shelter  of  the  the 
atres,  and  all  is  bleak  and  wet  and  squalid.  In  more 
respectful  vision  he  beholds  the  darkened  mansions  of 
the  richest  and  best,  who  have  already  fled  the  scene 
of  their  brief  winter  revel  and  are  forcing  the  spring 
in  their  Floridas,  their  Egypts,  their  Rivieras.  He 
himself  remains  midway  between  the  last  fall  and  the 
next  spring;  and  perhaps  he  decides  against  the  writer, 
as  the  perverse  reader  sometimes  will,  and  holds  that 
this  hour  of  suspense  and  misgiving  is  the  supreme,  the 
duodecimal  hour  of  the  metropolitan  dial.  He  may  be 
right;  who  knows?  New  York's  hours  are  all  charac 
teristic;  and  the  hour  whose  mystical  quality  we  have 
been  trying  to  intimate  is  already  past,  and  we  must 
wait  another  year  before  we  can  put  it  to  the  test  again ; 
wait  till  the  trees  once  more  stand  perfectly  still :  yel 
low,  yellowish  -  green,  crimson,  russet,  and  the  wind 
comes  up  and  blows  them  bare,  and  yet  another  summer 
is  dead,  and  the  mourners,  the  ghosts,  the  revenants 
have  once  more  returned  to  town. 


II 

PERSONAL    AND    EPISTOLARY    ADDRESSES 

A  CONSTANT  reader  of  the  Easy  Chair  has  come  to 
it  with  a  difficulty  which,  at  the  generous  Christmas- 
tide,  we  hope  his  fellow-readers  will  join  us  in  helping 
solve:  they  may,  if  they  like,  regard  it  as  a  merry  jest 
of  the  patron  saint  of  the  day,  a  sort  of  riddle  thrown 
upon  the  table  at  the  general  feast  for  each  to  try  his 
wits  upon 

"Across  the  walnuts  and  the  wine." 

"  How,"  this  puzzled  spirit  has  asked,  "  shall  I  ad 
dress  a  friend  of  mine  who,  besides  being  a  person  of 
civil  condition,  with  a  right  to  the  respect  that  we  like 
to  show  people  of  standing  in  directing  our  letters  to 
them,  has  the  distinction  of  being  a  doctor  of  phi 
losophy,  of  letters,  and  of  laws  by  the  vote  of  several 
great  universities  ?  Shall  I  greet  him  as,  say,  Smythe 
Johnes,  Esq.,  or  Dr.  Smythe  Johnes,  or  Smythe  Johnes, 
Ph.D.,  Litt.D.,  LL.D.,  or  simply  Mr.  Smythe  Johnes?" 

Decidedly,  we  should  answer,  to  begin  with,  not  "  Mr. 
Smythe  Johnes  "  if  you  wish  to  keep  the  finest  bloom 
on  your  friendship  with  any  man  who  knows  the  world. 
He  will  much  prefer  being  addressed  simply  "  Smythe 
Johnes,"  with  his  street  and  number,  for  he  feels  him 
self  classed  by  your  "  Mr.  Smythe  Johnes  "  with  all 
those  Mr.  Smythe  Johneses  whom  he  loves  and  honors 

264 


EPISTOLARY    ADDRESSES 

in  their  quality  of  tradesmen  and  working-men,  but 
does  not  hold  of  quite  the  same  social  rank  as  himself. 
After  our  revolt  in  essentials  from  the  English  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  we  are  now  conforming  more  and 
more  in  the  twentieth  to  their  usages  in  non-essentials, 
and  the  English  always  write  Smythe  Johnes,  Esq., 
or  Dr.  Smythe  Johnes  or  the  like,  unless  Mr.  Smythe 
Johnes  is  in  trade  c«r  below  it.  They,  indeed,  some 
times  carry  their  scruple  so  far  that  they  will  address 
him  as  Mr.  Smythe  Johnes  at  his  place  of  business,  and 
Smythe  Johnes,  Esq.,  at  his  private  residence. 

The  English,  who  like  their  taffy  thick  and  slab,  and 
who,  if  one  of  them  happens  to  be  the  Earl  of  Tolloller, 
are  not  richly  enough  satisfied  to  be  so  accosted  by  let 
ter,  but  exact  some  such  address  as  The  Eight  Honorable 
the  Earl  of  Tolloller,  all  like  distinctions  in  their  taffy, 
and  are  offended  if  you  give  them  a  commoner  sort 
than  they  think  their  due.  But  the  Americans,  who 
pretend  to  a  manlier  self-respect,  had  once  pretty  gen 
erally  decided  upon  Mr.  Smythe  Johnes  as  the  right  di 
rection  for  his  letters.  They  argued  that  Esquire  was 
the  proper  address  for  lawyers,  apparently  because  law 
yers  are  so  commonly  called  Squire  in  the  simpler 
life.  In  the  disuse  of  the  older  form  of  Armiger  they 
forgot  that  inter  arma  silent  Icncs,  and  that  Esquire 
was  logically  as  unfit  for  lawyers  as  for  civil  doctors, 
divines,  or  mediciners.  He  of  the  Easy  Chair,  when 
an  editor  long  ago,  yielded  to  the  prevalent  American 
misrendering  for  a  time,  and  indiscriminately  addressed 
all  his  contributors  as  "  Mr."  One  of  them,  the  most 
liberal  of  them  in  principle,  bore  the  ignominy  for 
about  a  year,  and  then  he  protested.  After  that  the 
young  editor  (he  was  then  almost  as  young  as  any  one 
now  writing  deathless  fiction)  indiscriminately  ad 
dressed  his  contributors  as  Esq.  Yet  he  had  an  abicl- 
18  2fif> 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

ing  sense  of  the  absurdity  in  directing  letters  to  John 
G.  Whittier,  Esq.,  for  if  the  poet  was  truly  a  Friend 
and  an  abhorrer  of  war,  he  could  not  be  hailed  Armiger 
without  something  like  insult. 

With  doctors  of  divinity  the  question  is  not  so  vex 
ing  or  vexed ;  but  it  is  said  that  of  late  a  lion  is  rising 
in  the  way  of  rightly  addressing  doctors  of  medicine. 
If  you  wish  to  be  attended  by  £  physician  who  pays 
all  visits  after  nightfall  in  evening  dress,  it  is  said 
that  you  are  now  to  write  Smythe  Johnes,  M.D.,  Esq., 
and  not  Dr.  Smythe  Johnes,  as  formerly.  In  Eng 
land,  the  source  of  all  our  ceremonial  woes,  you  can 
not  call  a  surgeon  "  doctor "  without  offence ;  he  is 
Mr.  Smythe  Johnes  when  spoken  to,  but  whether 
he  is  Mr.  Smythe  Johnes  through  the  post,  Heaven 
knows. 

It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  when  we  cut  ourselves 
off  from  that  troubled  source  politically,  we  did  not 
dam  it  up  in  all  the  things  of  etiquette.  We  indeed 
struck  for  freedom  and  sense  at  the  very  highest  point, 
and  began  at  once  to  write  George  Washington,  Presi 
dent,  as  we  still  write  William  H.  Taft,  President. 
The  Chief  Magistrate  is  offered  no  taffy  in  our  nation, 
or  perhaps  the  word  President  is  held  to  be  taffy  enough 
and  to  spare;  for  only  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts 
is  legally  even  so  much  as  Excellency.  Yet  by  usage 
you  are  expected  to  address  all  ambassadors  and  min 
isters  as  Excellencies,  and  all  persons  in  public  office 
from  members  of  Congress  and  of  the  Cabinet  down  to 
the  lowest  legislative  or  judicial  functionaries  as  Hon- 
orables.  This  simplifies  the  task  of  directing  envelopes 
to  them,  and,  if  a  man  once  holds  military  rank  in  any 
peace  establishment,  he  makes  life  a  little  easier  for  his 
correspondents  by  remaining  General,  or  Captain,  or 
Admiral,  or  Commander.  You  cannot  Mister  him,  and 

266 


EPISTOLARY    ADDRESSES 

you  cannot  Esquire  him,  and  there  is,   therefore,  no 
question  as  to  what  you  shall  superscribe  him. 

A  score  of  years  ago  two  friends,  now,  alas!  both 
doctors  of  philosophy,  of  letters,  and  of  laws,  agreed  to 
superscribe  their  letters  simply  Smythe  Johnes  and 
Johnes  Smythe  respectively,  without  any  vain  prefix  or 
affix.  They  kept  up  this  good  custom  till  in  process 
of  time  they  went  to  Europe  for  prolonged  sojourns, 
and  there  corrupted  their  manners,  so  that  when  they 
came  home  they  began  addressing  each  other  as  Esq., 
ard  have  done  so  ever  since.  Neither  is  any  the  better 
for  the  honors  they  exchange  on  the  envelopes  they  do 
not  look  at,  and  doubtless  if  mankind  could  be  brought 
to  the  renunciation  of  the  vain  prefixes  and  affixes  which 
these  friends  once  disused  the  race  would  be  none  the 
worse  for  it,  but  all  the  better.  One  prints  Mr.  Smythe 
Johnes  on  one's  visiting-card  because  it  passes  through 
the  hands  of  a  menial  who  is  not  to  be  supposed  for  a 
moment  to  announce  plain  Smythe  Johnes;  but  it  is 
the  United  States  post-office  which  delivers  the  letters 
of  Smythe  Johnes,  and  they  can  suffer  no  contamina 
tion  from  a  service  which  conveys  the  letters  of  plain 
William  II.  Taft  to  him  with  merely  the  explanatory 
affix  of  President,  lest  they  should  go  to  some  other 
William  H.  Taft. 

Undoubtedly  the  address  of  a  person  by  the  name 
with  which  he  was  christened  can  convey  no  shadow 
of  disrespect.  The  Society  of  Friends  understood  this 
from  the  beginning,  and  they  felt  that  they  were  want 
ing  in  no  essential  civility  when  they  refused  name- 
honor  as  well  as  hat-honor  to  all  and  every.  They  re 
mained  covered  in  the  highest  presences,  and  addressed 
each  by  his  Christian  name,  without  conveying  slight ; 
so  that  a  King  and  Queen  of  England,  who  had  once 
questioned  whether  they  could  suffer  themselves  to  be 

207 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

called  Thy  Majesty  instead  of  Your  Majesty  by  cer 
tain  Quakers,  found  it  no  derogation  of  their  dignity 
to  be  saluted  as  Friend  George  and  Friend  Charlotte. 
The  signory  of  the  proudest  republic  in  the  world  held 
that  their  family  names  were  of  sufficiency  to  which 
titles  could  add  nothing,  and  the  Venetian  who  called 
himself  Loredano,  or  Gradenigo,  or  Morosini,  or  Renier, 
or  Rezzonico  did  not  ask  to  be  called  differently.  In 
our  own  day  a  lady  of  the  ancient  and  splendid  family 
of  the  Peruzzi  in  Florence  denied  that  the  title  of 
count  existed  in  it  or  need  exist:  "  Ognuno  pud  essere 
conte:  Peruzzi,  no."  ("  Any  one  may  be  a  count;  but 
not  a  Peruzzi.")  In  like  manner  such  names  as  Lincoln 
and  Franklin,  and  Washington  and  Grant,  and  Long 
fellow  and  Bryant  could  have  gained  nothing  by  Mr. 
before  them  or  Esq.  after  them.  Doctor  Socrates  or 
Doctor  Seneca  would  not  have  descended  to  us  in  higher 
regard  with  the  help  of  these  titles ;  and  Rear-Admiral 
Themistocles  or  Major-General  Epaminondas  could  not 
have  had  greater  glory  from  the  survival  of  parchments 
so  directed  to  them. 

The  Venetian  nobles  who  disdained  titles  came  in 
process  of  time  to  be  saluted  as  Illustrissimo ;  but  in 
process  of  time  this  address  when  used  orally  began  to 
shed  its  syllables  till  Illustrissimo  became  Lustrissimo, 
and  then  Strissimo,  and  at  last  Striss,  when  perhaps  the 
family  name  again  sufficed.  So  with  us,  Doctor  has 
familiarly  become  "  Doc,"  and  Captain,  "  Cap,"  until 
one  might  rather  have  no  title  at  all.  Mr.  itself  is  a 
grotesque  malformation  of  a  better  word,  and  Miss  is 
a  silly  shortening  of  the  fine  form  of  Mistress.  This, 
pronounced  Misses,  can  hardly  add  dignity  to  the  name 
of  the  lady  addressed,  though  doubtless  it  cannot  be 
disused  till  we  are  all  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  The 
popular  necessity  has  resulted  in  the  vulgar  vocative 

2G8 


EPISTOLARY    ADDRESSES 

use  of  Lady,  but  the  same  use  of  Gentleman  has  not 
even  a  vulgar  success,  though  it  is  not  unknown.  You 
may  say,  with  your  hand  on  the  bell-strap,  "  Step  lively, 
lady,"  but  you  cannot  say,  "  Step  lively,  gentleman," 
and  the  fine  old  vocative  "  Sir  "  is  quite  obsolete.  We 
ourselves  remember  it  on  the  tongues  of  two  elderly 
men  who  greeted  each  other  with  "  Sir!"  and  "  Sir!" 
when  they  met;  and  "  Step  lively,  sir,"  might  convey 
the  same  delicate  regard  from  the  trolley  conductor  as 
"  Step  lively,  lady."  Sir  might  look  very  well  on  the 
back  of  a  letter;  Smythe  Johnes,  Sir,  would  on  some 
accounts  be  preferable  to  Smythe  Johnes,  Esq.,  and, 
oddly  enough,  it  would  be  less  archaic. 

Such  of  our  readers  as  have  dined  with  the  late  Queen 
or  the  present  King  of  England  will  recall  how  much 
it  eased  the  yoke  of  ceremony  to  say  to  the  sovereign, 
"  Yes,  ma'am,"  or  "  Yes,  sir,"  as  the  use  is,  instead  of 
your  Majesty.  But  to  others  you  cannot  say  "  Yes, 
ma'am,"  or  "  Yes,  sir,"  unless  you  are  in  that  station 
of  life  to  which  you  would  be  very  sorry  it  had  pleased 
God  to  call  you.  Yet  these  forms  seem  undeniably  fit 
when  used  by  the  young  to  their  elders,  if  the  difference 
of  years  is  great  enough. 

The  difficulty  remains,  however.  You  cannot  as  yet 
write  on  an  envelope,  Smythe  Johnes,  Sir,  or  Mary 
Johnes,  Lady;  and,  in  view  of  this  fact,  we  find  our 
selves  no  nearer  the  solution  of  our  constant  reader's 
difficulty  than  we  were  at  first.  The  Socialists,  who 
wish  to  simplify  themselves  and  others,  would  address 
Mr.  Johnes  as  Comrade  Smythe  Johnes,  but  could  they 
address  Mrs.  Johnes  as  Cornradess  ?  We  fancy  not; 
besides,  Comrade  suggests  arms  and  bloodshed,  which 
is  hardly  the  meaning  of  tho  red  flag  of  brotherhood, 
and  at  the  best  Comrade  looks  affected  and  sounds  even 
more  so.  Friend  would  be  better,  but  orally,  on  the 

260 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

lips  of  non  -  Quakers,  it  has  an  effect  of  patronage, 
though  no  one  could  rightly  feel  slight  in  a  letter  ad 
dressed  to  him  as  Friend  Smythe  Johnes. 

It  is  wonderful  to  consider  how  the  ancients  appar 
ently  got  on  without  the  use  of  any  sort  of  prefix  or 
affix  to  their  names  on  the  roll  of  parchment  or  fold 
of  papyrus  addressed  to  them.  For  all  we  know,  Caesar 
was  simply  C.  Julius  Cresar  to  his  correspondents,  and 
Pericles  was  yet  more  simply  Pericles  to  the  least  of 
his  fellow-citizens.  These  historical  personages  may 
have  had  the  number  of  their  houses  inscribed  on  their 
letters ;  or  Pericles  might  have  had  Son  of  Xanthippus 
added  to  his  name  for  purposes  of  identification ;  but 
apparently  he  managed  quite  as  well  as  our  Presidents, 
without  anything  equivalent  to  Excellency  or  Hon.  or 
Mr.  or  Esq.  To  be  sure,  with  the  decline  of 

"  The  glory  that  was  Greece 
And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome," 

name-honors  crept  in  more  and  more.  It  was  then  not 
only  politer  but  much  safer  to  address  your  petition 
To  the  Divine  Domitian,  or  To  the  Divine  Nero,  than 
to  greet  those  emperors  by  the  mere  given  names  which 
were  not  yet  Christian ;  probably  it  would  not  have 
been  enough  to  add  Caesar  to  the  last  name,  though 
Ca?sar  seems  to  have  finally  served  the  turn  of  Esq., 
for  all  the  right  that  the  emperors  had  to  bear  it.  In 
the  Eastern  Empire,  we  are  not  ready  to  say  what  was 
the  correct  style  for  imperial  dignitaries ;  but  among  the 
sovereigns  who  divided  the  Roman  state  and  inherited 
its  splendor,  some  rulers  came  to  be  sacred  majesties, 
though  this  is  still  a  sensible  remove  from  divine. 

However,  our  present  difficulty  is  with  that  vast  aver 
age  who  in  common  parlance  are  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Smythe 
Johnes.  How  shall  they  be  styled  on  the  backs  of  their 

270 


EPISTOLARY    ADDRESSES 

letters  ?  How  shall  Mrs.  Smythe  Johnes  especially,  in 
signing  herself  Mary  Jolmes,  indicate  that  she  is  not 
Miss  Mary  but  Mrs.  Smythe  Johnes?  When  she  is 
left  a  widow,  how  soon  does  she  cease  to  be  Mrs.  Smythe 
Johnes  and  become  Mrs.  Mary?  Is  it  requisite  to 
write  in  the  case  of  any  literary  doctorate,  Smythe 
Johnes,  LL.D.,  or  Litt.D.,  or  Ph.D.,  or  is  it  sufficient 
to  write  Dr.  before  his  name  ?  In  the  case  of  a  divine, 
do  you  put  Rev.  Dr.  before  the  name,  or  Rev.  before  it 
and  D.D.  after  it?  These  are  important  questions,  or, 
if  they  are  not  important,  they  are  at  least  interesting. 
Among  the  vast  mass  of  unceremonied,  or  call  it  un- 
mannered,  Americans  the  receiver  of  a  letter  probably 
knows  no  better  than  the  sender  how  it  should  be  ad 
dressed  ;  but  in  the  rarer  case  in  which  he  does  know, 
his  self-respect  or  his  self-love  is  wounded  if  it  is  mis 
addressed.  It  is  something  like  having  your  name  mis 
spelled,  though  of  course  not  so  bad  as  that,  quite ;  and 
every  one  would  be  glad  to  avoid  the  chance  of  it. 

The  matter  is  very  delicate  and  can  hardly  be  man 
aged  by  legislation,  as  it  was  on  the  point  of  our  pen 
to  suggest  it  should  be.  The  first  French  Republic,  one 
and  indivisible,  decreed  a  really  charming  form  of  ad 
dress,  which  could  be  used  without  offence  to  the  self- 
love  or  the  self-respect  of  any  one.  Citoyen  for  all 
men  and  Citoyenne  for  all  women  was  absolutely  taste 
ful,  modest,  and  dignified ;  but  some  things,  though  they 
are  such  kindred  things,  cannot  be  done  as  well  as  others. 
The  same  imaginative  commonwealth  invented  a  deci 
mal  chronology,  and  a  new  era,  very  handy  and  very 
clear ;  but  the  old  week  of  seven  days  came  back  and 
replaced  the  week  of  ten  days,  and  the  Year  of  our 
Lord  resumed  the  place  of  the  Year  of  the  Republic, 
as  Monsieur  and  Madame  returned  victorious  over 
Citoyen  and  Citoyenne.  Yet  the  reform  of  weights 

271 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

and  measures,  when  once  established,  continued,  and 
spread  from  France  to  most  other  countries — to  nearly 
all,  indeed,  less  stupid  than  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States — so  that  the  whole  civilized  world  now 
counts  in  grammes  and  metres.  What  can  be  the  fine 
difference?  Here  is  a  pretty  inquiry  for  the  psychol 
ogist,  who  has  an  opportunity  to  prove  himself  prac 
tically  useful.  Is  it  that  grammes  and  metres  are  less 
personal  than  week  -  days  and  addresses  ?  That  can 
hardly  be,  or  else  the  Society  of  Friends  could  not  have 
so  absolutely  substituted  First  Day  and  Second  Day, 
etc.,  for  the  old  heathen  names  of  our  week-days,  and 
could  not  have  successfully  refused  all  name  -  honor 
whatsoever  in  addressing  their  fellow-mortals. 

But  titles  have  come  back  full  -  tide  in  the  third 
French  Republic,  one  and  indivisible,  so  that  anybody 
may  wear  them,  though  the  oldest  nobility  are  officially 
and  legally  known  only  by  their  Christian  and  family 
names,  without  any  prefix.  This  is  practically  return 
ing  to  Citoyen  and  Citoyenne,  and  it  almost  gives  us 
the  courage  to  suggest  the  experiment  of  Citizen  and 
Citizenne  as  a  proper  address  on  the  letters  of  American 
republicans.  The  matter  might  be  referred  to  a  Board, 
something  like  that  of  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board, 
though  we  should  not  like  to  be  included  in  a  committee 
whose  members  must  be  prepared  to  take  their  lives  in 
their  hands,  or,  short  of  death,  to  suffer  every  manner 
of  shame  at  the  hands  of  our  journalists  and  their 
correspondents.  Short  of  the  adoption  of  Citizen  and 
Citizenne,  we  have  no  choice  but  to  address  one  another 
by  our  given  names  and  surnames  merely,  unless  wre 
prefer  to  remain  in  our  present  confusion  of  Mr.  and 
Esq.  In  a  very  little  while,  we  dare  say,  no  lady  or 
gentleman  would  mind  being  so  addressed  on  his  or  her 
letters ;  but  perhaps  some  men  and  women  might.  !N~ow 

272 


EPISTOLARY    ADDRESSES 

that  we  no  longer  use  pets  names  so  much,  except  among 
the  very  highest  of  our  noblesse,  where  there  are  still 
Jimmies  and  Mamies,  we  believe,  plain  Gladys  Smythe 
or  Reginald  Johnes  would  be  the  usual  superscription. 
Such  an  address  could  bring  no  discomfort  to  the  re 
cipient  (a  beautiful  word,  very  proper  in  this  connec 
tion),  and  if  it  could  once  be  generally  adopted  it  would 
save  a  great  deal  of  anxiety.  The  lady's  condition  could 
be  indicated  by  the  suffix  Spinster,  in  the  case  of  her 
being  single;  if  married,  the  initials  of  her  husband's 
given  names  could  be  added. 


Ill 

DRESSING  FOR  HOTEL  DINNER 

.  AMONG  the  high  excitements  of  a  recent  winter  in 
~New  York  was  one  of  such  convulsive  intensity  that  in 
the  nature  of  things  it  could  not  last  very  long.  It 
affected  the  feminine  temperament  of  our  public  with 
hysterical  violence,  but  left  the  community  the  calmer 
for  its  throes,  and  gently,  if  somewhat  pensively,  smil 
ing  in  a  permanent  ignorance  of  the  event.  No  outside 
observer  would  now  be  able  to  say,  offhand,  whether  a 
certain  eminent  innkeeper  had  or  had  not  had  his  way 
with  his  customers  in  the  matter  not  only  of  what  they 
should  eat  or  drink,  but  what  they  should  wear  when 
dining  in  a  place  which  has  been  described  as  "  sup 
plying  exclusiveness  to  the  lower  classes."  It  is  not 
even  certain  just  how  a  crucial  case  was  brought  to  the 
notice  of  this  authority;  what  is  certain  is  that  his  in 
stant  judgment  was  that  no  white  male  citizen  fre 
quenting  his  proud  tavern  should  sit  at  dinner  there 
unless  clothed  in  a  dress-coat,  or  at  least  in  the  smoking- 
jacket  known  to  us  as  a  Tuxedo;  at  breakfast  or  at 
luncheon,  probably,  the  guest,  the  paying  guest,  could 
sufficiently  shine  in  the  reflected  glory  of  the  lustrous 
evening  wear  of  the  waiters.  No  sooner  was  the  inn 
keeper's  judgment  rendered  than  a  keen  thrill  of  re 
sentment,  or  at  least  amusement,  ran  through  the  gen 
eral  breast.  From  every  quarter  the  reporters  hastened 

274 


DRESSING  EOK  HOTEL  DIN NEK 

to  verify  the  fact  at  first-hand,  and  then  to  submit  it 
to  the  keeper  of  every  other  eminent  inn  or  eating- 
house  in  the  city  and  learn  his  usage  and  opinion. 
These  to  a  man  disavowed  any  such  hard-and-fast  rule. 
Though  their  paying  guests  were  ordinarily  gentle 
men  of  such  polite  habits  as  to  be  incapable  of  dining 
in  anything  but  a  dress-coat  or  a  Tuxedo,  yet  their  inns 
and  eating-houses  were  not  barred  against  those  who 
chose  to  dine  in  a  frock  or  cutaway  or  even  a  sacque. 
It  is  possible  that  the  managers  imagined  themselves 
acquiring  merit  with  that  large  body  of  our  vulgar  who 
demand  exclusiveness  by  their  avowal  of  a  fine  indif 
ference  or  an  enlightened  tolerance  in  the  matter.  But 
at  this  distance  of  time  no  one  can  confidently  say  how 
the  incident  was  closed  with  respect  to  the  pre-eminent 
innkeeper  and  his  proud  tavern.  Whether  the  way 
farer,  forced  by  the  conditions  of  travel  upon  the  com 
pany  of  the  exclusive  vulgar,  may  now  dine  there  in 
the  public  banqueting-hall  in  his  daytime  raiment,  or 
must  take  his  evening  meal  in  his  room,  with  a  penalty 
in  the  form  of  an  extra  charge  for  service,  nowise  ap 
pears. 

What  is  apparent  from  the  whole  affair  is  that  the 
old  ideal  of  one's  inn,  as  a  place  where  one  shall  take 
one's  ease,  has  perished  in  the  evolution  of  the  mag 
nificent  American  hotel  which  we  have  been  maliciously 
seeking  to  minify  in  the  image  of  its  Old  World 
germ.  One  may  take  one's  ease  in  one's  hotel  only 
if  one  is  dressed  to  the  mind  of  the  hotel  -  keeper, 
or  perhaps  finally  the  head  waiter.  But  what  is 
more  important  still  is  that  probably  the  vast  multi 
tude  of  the  moneyed  vulgar  whose  exclusiveness  is  sup 
plied  to  them  in  such  a  place  dictate,  tacitly  at  least,  the 
Draconian  policy  of  the  management.  No  innkeeper 
or  head  waiter,  no  matter  of  how  patrician  an  experi- 

275 


IMAGINARY    IKTEKVIEWS 

ence  or  prejudice,  would  imagine  a  measure  of  such 
hardship  to  wayfarers  willing  to  pay  for  the  simple 
comfort  of  their  ancestors  at  the  same  rate  as  their 
commensals  stiffly  shining  in  the  clothes  of  convention. 
The  management  might  have  its  conception  of  what  a 
hotel  dining-room  should  look  like,  with  an  unhroken 
array  of  gentlemen  in  hlack  dress-coats  and  ladies  in 
white  shoulders  all  feeding  as  superbly  as  if  they  were 
not  paying  for  their  dinners,  or  as  if  they  had  been 
severally  asked  for  the  pleasure  of  their  company  two 
weeks  before;  and  the  picture  would  doubtless  be 
marred  by  figures  of  people  in  cutaways  and  high  necks, 
to  a  degree  intolerable  to  the  artistic  sense.  But  it  is 
altogether  impossible  that  the  management  would  exact 
a  conformity  to  the  general  effect  which  was  not  desired 
by  the  vast  majority  of  its  paying  guests.  What  might 
well  have  seemed  a  break  on  the  part  of  the  pre-eminent 
innkeeper  when  he  cited  as  a  precedent  for  his  decision 
the  practice  of  the  highest  hotels  in  London  was  really 
no  break,  but  a  stroke  of  the  finest  juridical  acumen. 
Nothing  could  have  gone  further  with  the  vast  majority 
of  his  paying  guests  than  some  such  authority,  for  they 
could  wish  nothing  so  much,  in  the  exclusiveness  sup 
plied  them,  as  the  example  of  the  real  characters  in  the 
social  drama  which  they  were  impersonating.  They 
had  the  stage  and  the  scenery;  they  had  spared  no  ex 
pense  in  their  costuming;  they  had  anxiously  studied 
their  parts,  and  for  the  space  of  their  dinner-hour  they 
had  the  right  to  the  effect  of  aristocratic  society,  which 
they  were  seeking,  unmarred  by  one  discordant  note. 
After  that  hour,  let  it  be  a  cramped  stall  in  the  orchestra 
of  another  theatre,  or  let  it  be  an  early  bed  in  a  cell  of 
their  colossal  columbary,  yet  they  would  have  had  their 
dinner-hour  when  they  shone  primarily  just  like  the 
paying  guests  in  the  finest  English  hotel,  and  seconda- 

276 


DRESSING    FOR    HOTEL    DINNER 

rily  just  like  the  non-paying  guests  at  the  innumerable 
dinners  of  the  nobilitv  and  gentry  in  a  thousand  private 
houses  in  London. 

Our  aim  is  always  high,  and  they  would  be  right  to 
aim  at  nothing  lower  than  this  in  their  amateur  dra 
matics.  But  here  we  have  a  question  which  we  have 
been  holding  back  by  main  force  from  the  beginning, 
and  which  now  persists  in  precipitating  itself  in  our 
peaceful  page.  It  is  a  question  which  merits  wider  and 
closer  study  than  we  can  give  it,  and  it  will,  we  hope, 
find  an  answer  such  as  we  cannot  supply  in  the  wisdom 
of  the  reader.  It  presented  itself  to  the  mind  of  Eu- 
genio  in  a  recent  experience  of  his  at  a  famous  seaside 
resort  which  does  not  remit  its  charm  even  in  the  heart 
of  winter,  and  which  with  the  first  tremor  of  the  open 
ing  spring  allures  the  dweller  among  the  sky-scrapers 
and  the  subways  with  an  irresistible  appeal.  We  need 
not  further  specify  the  place,  but  it  is  necessary  to  add 
that  it  draws  not  only  the  jaded  or  sated  New- Yorker, 
but  the  more  eager  and  animated  average  of  well-to-do 
people  from  every  part  of  their  country  who  have  got 
bored  out  with  their  happy  homes  and  want  a  few  days' 
or  a  few  weeks'  change.  One  may  not  perhaps  meet 
a  single  distinguished  figure  on  its  famous  promenade, 
or  at  least  more  distinguished  than  one's  own ;  with 
the  best  will  in  the  world  to  find  such  figures,  Eugenio 
could  count  but  three  or  four :  a  tall,  alert,  correct  man 
or  two ;  an  electly  fashioned,  perfectly  set-up,  dominant 
woman  or  so,  whose  bearing  expressed  the  supremacy 
of  a  set  in  some  unquestionable  world.  But  there  was 
obvious  riches  aplenty,  and  aplenty  of  the  kind  whole- 
someness  of  the  good,  true,  intelligent,  and  heaven- 
bound  virtue  of  what  we  must  begin  to  call  our  middle 
class,  offensive  as  the  necessity  may  be.  Here  and  there 
the  effect  of  champagne  in  the  hair,  which  deceived  no 

277 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

one  but  the  wearer,  was  to  be  noted;  here  and  there, 
high-rolling,  a  presence  with  the  effect  of  something 
more  than  champagne  in  the  face  loomed  in  the  per 
spective  through  the  haze  of  a  costly  cigar.  But  by  far, 
immensely  far,  the  greater  number  of  his  fellow-fre 
quenters  of  the  charming  promenade  were  simple,  do 
mestic,  well-meaning  Americans  like  Eugenio  himself, 
of  a  varying  simplicity  indeed,  but  always  of  a  sim 
plicity.  They  were  the  stuff  with  which  his  fancy  (he 
never  presumed  to  call  it  his  imagination)  had  hitherto 
delighted  to  play,  fondly  shaping  out  of  the  collective 
material  those  lineaments  and  expressions  which  he 
hoped  contained  a  composite  likeness  of  his  American 
day  and  generation.  The  whole  situation  was  most 
propitious,  and  yet  he  found  himself  moving  through  it 
without  one  of  the  impulses  which  had  been  almost  life 
long  with  him.  As  if  in  some  strange  paralysis,  some 
obsession  by  a  demon  of  indifference  unknown  before, 
he  was  bereft  of  the  will  to  realize  these  familiar  pro 
tagonists  of  his  plain  dramas.  He  knew  them,  of 
course;  he  knew  them  all  too  well;  but  he  had  not 
the  wish  to  fit  the  likest  of  them  with  phrases,  to  cos 
tume  them  for  their  several  parts,  to  fit  them  into  the 
places  in  the  unambitious  action  where  they  had  so  often 
contributed  to  the  modest  but  inevitable  catastrophe. 

The  experience  repeated  itself  till  he  began  to  take 
himself  by  the  collar  and  shake  himself  in  the  dismay 
of  a  wild  conjecture.  What  had  befallen  him?  Had 
he  gone  along,  young,  eager,  interested,  delighted  with 
his  kind  for  half  a  century  of  aesthetic  consciousness, 
and  now  had  he  suddenly  lapsed  into  the  weariness  and 
apathy  of  old  age?  It  is  always,  short  of  ninety,  too 
soon  for  that,  and  Eugenio  was  not  yet  quite  ninety. 
Was  his  mind,  then,  prematurely  affected?  But  was 
not  this  question  itself  proof  that  his  mind  was  still 

278 


DRESSING    EOR    HOTEL    DINNER 

importunately  active  ?  If  that  was  so,  why  did  not  he 
still  wish  to  make  his  phrases  about  his  like,  to  repro 
duce  their  effect  in  composite  portraiture  ?  Eugenio 
fell  into  a  state  so  low  that  nothing  but  the  confession 
of  his  perplexity  could  help  him  out;  and  the  friend  to 
whom  he  owned  his  mystifying,  his  all  but  appalling, 
experience  did  not  fail  him  in  his  extremity.  "  No," 
he  wrote  back,  "  it  is  not  that  you  have  seen  all  these 
people,  and  that  they  offer  no  novel  types  for  observa 
tion,  but  even  more  that  they  illustrate  the  great  fact 
that,  in  the  course  of  the  last  twenty  years,  society  in 
America  has  reached  its  goal,  has  '  arrived,'  and  is 
creating  no  new  types.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  obliterat 
ing  some  of  the  best  which  were  clearly  marked,  and 
is  becoming  more  and  more  one  rich,  dead  level  of  medi 
ocrity,  broken  here  and  there  by  solitary  eminences, 
some  of  which  are  genuine,  some  only  false  peaks  with 
out  solid  rock  foundations." 

Such  a  view  of  his  case  must  be  immediately  and 
immensely  consoling,  but  it  was  even  more  precious  to 
Eugenio  for  the  suggestion  from  which  his  fancy — never 
imagination — began  to  play  forward  with  the  vivacity 
of  that  of  a  youth  of  sixty,  instead  of  a  middle-aged 
man  of  eighty-five.  If  all  this  were  true — and  its  truth 
shone  the  more  distinctly  from  a  ground  of  potential 
dissent — was  not  there  the  stuff  in  the  actual  conditions 
from  which  a  finer  artist  than  he  could  ever  hope  to 
be,  novv  that  the  first  glow  of  his  prime  was  past,  might 
fashion  an  image  of  our  decadence,  or  our  arrest,  so 
grandly,  so  perfectly  dull  and  uninteresting,  that  it 
would  fix  all  the  after-ages  with  the  sovereign  authority 
of  a  masterpiece  ?  Here,  he  tremblingly  glowed  to  real 
ize,  was  opportunity,  not  for  him,  indeed,  but  for  some 
more  modern,  more  divinely  inspired  lover  of  the  medi 
ocre,  to  eternize  our  typelessness  and  establish  himself 

279 


IMAGINAKY    INTEEVIEWS 

among  the  many-millioned  heirs  of  fame.  It  had  been 
easy — how  easy  it  had  been! — to  catch  the  likeness  of 
those  formative  times  in  which  he  had  lived  and 
wrought;  but  the  triumph  and  the  reward  of  the  new 
artist  would  be  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty  of  seizing 
the  rich,  self  -  satisfied,  ambitionless,  sordid  common 
place  of  a  society  wishing  to  be  shut  up  in  a  steam- 
heated,  electric-lighted  palace  and  fed  fat  in  its  exclu- 
siveness  with  the  inexhaustible  inventions  of  an  over 
paid  chef.  True,  the  strong,  simple  days  of  the  young 
republic,  when  men  forgot  themselves  in  the  struggle 
with  the  wild  continent,  were  past ;  true,  the  years  were 
gone  when  the  tremendous  adventure  of  tearing  from 
her  heart  the  iron  and  the  gold  which  were  to  bind 
her  in  lasting  subjection  gave  to  fiction  industrial 
heroes  fierce  and  bold  as  those  of  classic  fable  or  medi 
aeval  romance.  But  there  remained  the  days  of  the 
years  which  shall  apparently  have  no  end,  but  shall 
abound  forever  in  an  inexhaustible  wealth  of  the  sort 
wishing  not  so  much  to  rise  itself  as  to  keep  down  and 
out  all  suggestion  of  the  life  from  which  it  sprang. 

The  sort  of  type  which  would  represent  this  condi 
tion  would  be  vainly  sought  in  any  exceptionally  opu 
lent  citizen  of  that  world.  He  would  have,  if  nothing 
else,  the  distinction  of  his  unmeasured  millions,  which 
would  form  a  poetry,  however  sordid;  the  note  of  the 
world  we  mean  is  indistinction,  and  the  protagonist  of 
the  fiction  seeking  to  portray  its  fads  and  characters 
must  not  have  more  than  two  or  three  millions  at  the 
most.  He,  or  better  she,  were  better  perhaps  with  only 
a  million,  or  a  million  and  a  half,  or  enough  to  live 
handsomely  in  eminent  inns,  either  at  home  or  abroad, 
with  that  sort  of  insolent  half-knowledge  to  which  cult 
ure  is  contemptible ;  which  can  feel  the  theatre,  but  not 
literature ;  which  has  passed  from  the  horse  to  the  auto- 

280 


DRESSING    FOR    HOTEL    DINNER 

mobile;  which  has  its  moral  and  material  yacht,  cruis 
ing  all  social  coasts  and  making  port  in  none  where 
there  is  not  a  hotel  or  cottage  life  as  empty  and  ex 
clusive  as  its  own.  Even  in  trying  to  understate  tho 
sort,  one  overstates  it.  Nothing  could  be  more  untrue 
to  its  reality  than  the  accentuation  of  traits  which  in 
the  arrivals  of  society  elsewhere  and  elsewhen  have 
marked  the  ultimation  of  the  bourgeois  spirit.  Say 
that  the  Puritan,  the  Pilgrim,  the  Cavalier,  and  the 
Merchant  Adventurer  have  come  and  gone ;  say  that  the 
Kevolutionist  Patriot,  the  Pioneer  and  the  Backwoods 
man  and  the  Noble  Savage  have  come  and  gone ;  say 
that  the  Slaveholder  and  the  Slave  and  the  Abolitionist 
and  the  Civil  Warrior  have  come  and  gone ;  say  that  the 
Miner,  the  Rancher,  the  Cowboy,  and  the  sardonically 
humorous  Frontiersman  have  come  and  gone;  say  that 
the  simple-hearted,  hard-working,  modest,  genial  Home- 
makers  have  come  and  gone;  say  that  the  Captain  of 
Industry  has  come  and  gone,  and  the  world-wide  Finan 
cier  is  going:  what  remains  for  actuality-loving  art  to 
mould  into  shapes  of  perdurable  beauty?  Obviously, 
only  the  immeasurable  mass  of  a  prosperity  sunken  in 
a  self-satisfaction  unstirred  by  conscience  and  unmoved 
by  desire.  But  is  that  a  reason  why  art  should  despair  ? 
Rather  it  is  a  reason  why  it  should  rejoice  in  an  op 
portunity  occurring  not  more  than  once  in  the  ages  to 
seize  the  likeness  and  express  the  significance  of  Ar 
rival,  the  arrival  of  a  whole  civilization.  To  do  this, 
art  must  refine  and  re-refine  upon  itself;  it  must  use 
methods  of  unapproached  delicacy,  of  unimagined 
subtlety  and  celerity.  It  is  easy  enough  to  cateh  the 
look  of  the  patrician  in  the  upper  air,  of  the  plebeian 
underfoot,  but  to  render  the  image  of  a  world-bour 
geoisie,  compacted  in  characters  of  undeniable  verisi 
militude,  that  will  be  difficult,  but  it  will  be  possible, 
19  281 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

and  the  success  will  be  of  an  effulgence  such  as  has 
never  yet  taken  the  eyes  of  wonder. 

We  should  not  be  disposed  to  deny  the  artist,  dedi 
cated  to  this  high  achievement  by  his  love  of  the  ma 
terial  not  less  than  by  his  peculiar  gift,  the  range  of  a 
liberal  idealism.  We  would  not  have  him  bound  by  any 
precedent  or  any  self-imposed  law  of  literality.  If  he 
should  see  his  work  as  a  mighty  historical  picture,  or 
series  of  such  pictures,  we  should  not  gainsay  him  his 
conception  or  bind  him  rather  to  any  genre  result.  We 
ourselves  have  been  evolving  here  the  notion  of  some 
large  allegory  which  should  bear  the  relation  to  all 
other  allegories  that  Bartholdi's  colossus  of  Liberty 
bears  to  all  other  statues,  and  which  should  carry  for 
ward  the  story  and  the  hero,  or  the  heroine,  to  some 
such  supreme  moment  as  that  when,  amid  the  approving 
emotion  of  an  immense  hotel  dining-room,  all  in  decol- 
letee  and  frac  pare,,  the  old,  simple-lived  American, 
wearing  a  sack-coat  and  a  colored  shirt,  shall  be  led  out 
between  the  eminent  innkeeper  and  the  head  waiter  and 
delivered  over  to  the  police  to  be  conducted  in  ignominy 
to  the  nearest  Italian  table  d'hote.  The  national  char 
acter,  on  the  broad  level  of  equality  which  fiction  once 
delighted  to  paint,  no  longer  exists,  but  if  a  deeper,  a 
richer,  a  more  enduring  monotony  replaces  it,  we  have 
no  fear  but  some  genius  will  arrive  and  impart  the  ef 
fect  of  the  society  which  has  arrived. 


IV 


THE  COUNSEL  OF  LITERARY  AGE  TO  LITERARY 
YOUTH 

As  Eugenic — we  will  call  him  Eugenic:  a  fine  im 
personal  name — grew  older,  and  became,  rightfully  or 
wrongfully,  more  and  more  widely  known  for  his  writ 
ings,  he  found  himself  increasingly  the  subject  of  ap 
peal  from  young  writers  who  wished  in  their  turn  to 
become,  rightfully  or  wrongfully,  more  and  more  widely 
known.  This  is  not,  indeed,  stating  the  case  with  the 
precision  which  we  like.  His  correspondents  were 
young  enough  already,  but  they  were  sometimes  not 
yet  writers;  they  had  only  the  ambition  to  be  writers. 
Our  loose  formulation  of  the  fact,  however,  will  cover 
all  its  meaning,  and  we  will  let  it  go  that  they  were 
young  writers,  for,  whether  they  were  or  not,  they  all 
wished  to  know  one  thing:  namely,  how  he  did  it. 

What,  they  asked  in  varying  turns,  was  his  secret,  his 
recipe  for  making  the  kind  of  literature  which  had 
made  him  famous :  they  did  stint  their  phrase,  and  they 
said  famous.  That  always  caused  Eugenio  to  blush,  at 
first  with  shame  and  then  with  pleasure ;  whatever  one's 
modesty,  one  likes  to  be  called  famous,  and  Eugenie's 
pleasure  in  their  flatteries  was  so  much  greater  than 
his  shame  that  he  thought  only  how  to  return  them  the 
pleasure  unmixed  with  the  shame.  His  heart  went  out 
to  those  generous  youths,  who  sometimes  confessed 
themselves  still  in  their  teens,  and  often  of  the  sex 

283 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

which  is  commonly  most  effective  with  the  fancy  while 
still  in  its  teens.  It  seemed  such  a  very  little  thing 
to  show  them  the  way  to  do  what  he  had  done,  and, 
while  disclaiming  any  merit  for  it,  to  say  why  it  was 
the  best  possible  way.  If  they  had  grouped  him  with 
other  widely  known  writers  in  their  admiration,  he 
never  imagined  directing  his  correspondents  to  those 
others'  methods;  he  said  to  himself  that  he  did  not 
understand  them,  and  at  bottom  he  felt  that  it  would 
have  been  better  taste  in  the  generous  youths  to  have 
left  them  out  of  the  question. 

In  the  end  he  never  answered  his  correspondents  in 
the  handsome  way  he  had  fancied.  Generally  he  did 
not  answer  them  at  all,  or,  if  he  did,  he  put  them  off 
with  some  such  cheap  excuse  as  advising  them  to  be  sure 
they  had  something  to  say,  and  then  to  say  it  as  simply 
and  clearly  as  they  could.  He  knew  very  well  that  this 
was  begging  the  question;  that  the  question  was  how 
to  be  artistic,  graceful,  charming,  and  whatever  else 
they  said  he  himself  was.  If  he  was  aware  of  not 
being  all  that,  he  was  aware  also  of  having  tried  to 
be  it ;  of  having  sought  from  the  beginning  to  captivate 
the  reader's  fancy  as  well  as  convince  his  reason.  He 
had  never  been  satisfied  with  being  plain  and  direct; 
he  had  constantly  wished  to  amuse  as  well  as  edify,  and 
following  the  line  of  beauty,  as  that  of  the  least  re 
sistance,  had  been  his  practice  if  not  his  precept.  If 
he  counselled  his  correspondents  otherwise,  he  would 
be  uncandid,  and  when  he  had  imagined  putting  them 
off  in  that  fashion  he  was  more  ashamed  than  he  had 
been  with  their  praise. 

Yet,  upon  reflection,  he  perceived  that  what  they 
asked  was  impossible.  If  ever  he  had  a  formula  he 
had  lost  it;  he  was  no  longer  in  his  own  secret,  if  ever 
he  had  been.  All  that  he  could  have  said  with  perfect 

284 


THE    COUNSEL    OF    LITERARY    AGE 

honesty  would  have  been  that  he  had  never  found  any 
royal  road  to  literature;  that  to  his  experience  there 
was  not  even  a  common  highway ;  that  there  were  only 
byways ;  private  paths  over  other  people's  grounds ;  ease 
ments  beaten  out  by  feet  that  had  passed  before,  and 
giving  by  a  subsequent  overgrowth  of  turf  or  brambles 
a  deceitful  sense  of  discovery  to  the  latest-comer. 

His  correspondents  would  not  have  liked  that.  He 
knew  that  what  they  wanted  was  his  measure  of  the 
old  success  in  some  new  way,  which  they  could  feel 
their  own  after  it  had  been  shown  them.  But  the  only 
secret  that  he  was  still  in  was  the  very  open  one  of 
working  hard  at  whatever  he  had  in  hand,  and  this  he 
suspected  they  would  have  scorned  sharing  with  him. 
lie  could  have  said  that  if  you  want  to  keep  three  or 
five  balls  in  the  air  at  once  you  must  learn  how  by 
practising ;  but  they  knew  that  as  well  as  he ;  what  they 
asked  was  being  enabled  to  do  it  themselves  from  his 
having  practised. 

The  perception  of  this  fact  made  Eugenio  very  sad, 
and  he  asked  himself  if  the  willingness  to  arrive  only 
after  you  had  got  there  had  gone  out  of  the  world  and 
left  nothing  but  the  ambition  to  be  at  this  point  or  that 
without  the  trouble  of  having  reached  it.  He  smiled 
as  he  recalled  the  stock  criticism  of  the  connoisseur  in 
The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  that  the  picture  would  have 
been  better  if  the  painter  had  taken  more  pains;  but 
he  did  not  smile  gayly:  there  seemed  to  him  a  sum  of 
pathetic  wisdom  in  the  saying  which  might  well  weigh 
down  the  blithest  spirit.  It  had  occurred  to  him  in 
connection  with  an  old  essay  of  Hazlitt's,  which  he  had 
been  reading,  on  the  comparative  methods  of  English 
and  French  painters  in  their  work.  The  essayist  held, 
almost  literally,  that  the  French  pictures  were  better 
because  the  French  painters  had  taken  more  pains,  and 

285 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

taken  especial  pains  in  the  least  interesting  parts  of 
their  pictures.  He  was  dealing  more  specifically  with 
copying,  but  his  words  applied  to  the  respective  schools 
in  their  highest  work,  and  he  could  only  save  his  patri 
otic  pride,  so  far  as  he  might,  by  saying :  "  Courage 
is  pure  will  without  regard  to  consequences,  and  this 
the  English  have  in  perfection.  Poetry  is  our  element, 
for  the  essence  of  poetry  is  will  and  passion.  The 
English  fail  as  a  people  in  the  fine  arts,  namely,  be 
cause  the  end  with  them  absorbs  the  means." 

Eugenio  knew  nothing  practically  and  very  little 
theoretically  of  painting;  but  it  appeared  to  him  that 
what  Hazlitt  said  was  of  equal  force  with  respect  to 
the  fine  art  of  literature;  and  that  in  his  own 
American  field  the  English  race  failed,  as  far  as 
it  had  failed,  for  the  same  reason  as  that  given  by  Haz 
litt  for  its  failure  in  painting.  In  his  mind  he  went 
further  than  Hazlitt,  or  came  short  of  him,  in  refusing 
the  consolation  of  our  race's  superiority  in  poetry  be 
cause  it  was  will  and  passion.  As  far  as  they  had  ex 
celled  in  that,  it  was  because  they  had  tried  hard  and 
not  neglected  the  means  for  the  end.  Where  they  had 
excelled  most,  it  was  quite  imaginable  that  the  poem 
would  still  have  been  better  if  the  poet  had  taken  more 
pains.  In  the  case  of  prose,  he  thought  we  failed  of 
the  end  because  we  were  impatient  of  the  means,  and 
as  elderly  men  will,  he  accused  the  present  of  being 
more  hasty  and  indifferent  to  form  than  the  past.  He 
recalled  the  time  when  he  was  apprentice  in  the  art  in 
which  he  could  not  yet  call  himself  a  master  workman, 
and  thought  how  he  tried  to  make  what  he  did  beautiful, 
and  fashioned  his  work  with  tireless  pains  after  some 
high  model.  Perhaps  the  young  writers  of  this  time 
were  striving  as  earnestly;  but  he  could  not  see  it,  or 
thought  he  could  not.  He  fancied  their  eyes  dazzled 

280 


THE    COUNSEL    OF    LITERARY    AGE 

by  the  images  of  easy  success,  instead  of  taken  with 
the  glory  of  a  thing  beautifully  done.  He  remembered, 
with  fond  emotion,  how  once  his  soul  had  glowed  over 
some  u  cunning'st  pattern  of  excelling  nature,"  and  had 
been  filled  with  longing  to  learn  from  it  the  art  of  sur 
prising  some  other  mood  or  aspect  of  nature  and  mak 
ing  that  loveliness  or  grandeur  his  own.  He  had  talked 
with  other  youths  who  were  trying  at  the  same  time 
to  do  good  work,  and  he  remembered  that  they  too 
were  trying  in  the  same  way;  and  now,  long  after,  he 
fancied  that  their  difference  from  the  youth  of  the  pres 
ent  day  was  in  their  willingness  to  strive  for  perfection 
in  the  means  and  to  let  the  end  take  care  of  itself.  The 
end  could  no  more  justify  bad  means  in  aesthetics  than 
in  ethics;  in  fact,  without  the  carefully  studied  means 
there  could  be  no  artistic  result.  If  it  was  true  that 
the  young  writers  of  the  present  expected  a  high  result 
from  hurried  or  neglected  processes,  they  could  have 
only  the  results  that  Eugenic  saw  around  him.  If  they 
admired  these,  and  were  coming  to  him  for  the  secret 
of  achieving  them,  they  were  coming  to  the  wrong  shop. 
Yet  he  did  not  harshly  blame  them.  He  remem 
bered  how  he,  too,  when  he  had  been  impatient  of  the 
means,  had  once  fancied  postponing  them  to  the  end. 
That  was  in  the  days  which  were  mainly  filled  for  him 
with  the  business  of  writing  fiction,  and  when  the 
climax  of  his  story  seemed  always  threatening  to  hide 
itself  from  him  or  to  elude  his  grasp.  There  were  times 
when  it  changed  to  some  other  end  or  took  a  different 
significance  from  that  it  had  primarily  had.  Then  ho 
had  said  to  himself  that  if  he  could  only  write  the  end 
first,  or  boldly  block  it  out  as  it  first  presented  itself, 
and  afterward  go  back  and  write  in  the  events  and  char 
acters  leading  up  to  it,  he  would  have  an  effect  glorified 
by  all  the  fervor  of  his  primal  inspiration.  But  he 

287 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

never  did  that,  or  even  tried  to  do  it.  Perhaps,  when 
he  came  to  consider  it  more  carefully,  it  appeared  im 
possible  ;  perhaps  it  approved  itself  ridiculous  without 
experiment.  His  work  of  art,  such  as  it  was,  was  a 
growth  from  all  his  thinking  and  feeling  about  it ;  and 
without  that  it  could  no  more  eventuate  in  a  climax 
than  a  tree  could  ripen  fruit  without  the  preliminaries 
of  striking  its  roots  into  the  ground,  coming  of  the 
age  to  bear,  and  then  some  springtime  budding,  put 
ting  out  leaves,  breaking  into  blossom,  and  setting 
its  young  apples,  or  whatever  else  it  was  going  to 
bear.  The  fruit  it  bore  would  be  according  to  its  kind, 
and  he  might  have  been  mistakenly  expecting  to  grow 
peaches  from  an  apple  stock  when  he  was  surprised  to 
find  apples  on  it,  or  the  end  of  his  novel  turning  out 
other  than  he  had  forecast  it. 

In  literature  the  reader's  affair  is  with  results,  but 
the  author's  with  processes.  Eugenic  had  realized  this 
more  and  more  distinctly,  and,  as  he  now  reflected  on 
the  appeals  of  those  fond  young  correspondents  of  his, 
it  occurred  to  him  that  their  confusion  as  to  literary 
methods  and  manners  lay  in  their  being  still  readers  so 
largely  and  so  little  authors  as  yet.  They  were  dealing 
with  the  end,  in  their  mistaken  minds,  and  not  with  the 
means,  as  they  supposed.  The  successes  which  dazzled 
them  might  very  well  have  been  written  backward  in 
some  such  fashion  as  he  had  once  imagined,  for  the 
end  was  the  main  thing  with  them,  and  was  the  end  of 
the  story  as  well  as  the  end  of  the  book.  But  the  true 
story  never  ends.  The  close  of  the  book  is  simply  the 
point  at  which  the  author  has  stopped,  and,  if  he  has 
stopped  wisely,  the  reader  takes  up  the  tale  and  goes 
on  with  it  in  his  own  mind. 

As  for  the  variance  of  the  close  from  the  forecast 
of  it,  Eugenic  was  less  and  less  dismayed  by  that,  when 

288 


THE    COUNSEL    OF    LITERARY    AGE 

in  tjie  course  of  time  be  looked  more  closely  at  his  own 
life  and  the  lives  of  other  men.  Only  on  some  spiritual 
terms  was  there  the  fulfilment  of  forecast  in  them,  and 
the  more  art  resembled  life  the  less  responsive  it  was  to 
any  hard-and-fast  design.  Tie  perceived  that  to  find  the 
result  changing  from  the  purpose  might  very  well  be  a 
proof  of  vitality  in  it,  an  evidence  of  unconscious  in 
sight,  the  sort  of  inspiration  that  comes  to  crown  faith 
ful  work  with  unimagined  beauty.  He  looked  round 
at  the  great  works  of  literary  art,  and  he  believed  that 
he  saw  in  them  the  escape  from  implicit  obedience  to  a 
first  intention.  Only  in  the  inferior  things,  the  me 
chanical  things,  could  he  discern  obedience.  In  some 
thing  supreme,  like  Hamlet,  say,  there  was  everything 
to  make  him  think  that  the  processes  had  educated 
Shakespeare  as  to  the  true  nature  of  his  sublime  en 
deavor  and  had  fixed  the  terms  of  its  close.  Probably 
the  playwright  started  with  the  notion  of  making  Ham 
let  promptly  kill  his  stepfather,  rescue  Ophelia  from 
the  attempt  to  climb  out  over  the  stream  on  a  willow 
branch,  forgive  his  erring  mother  as  more  sinned 
against  than  sinning,  welcome  Laertes  back  to  Den 
mark,  and  with  the  Ghost  of  his  father  blessing  the 
whole  group,  and  Polonius  with  his  arm  in  a  sling, 
severely  but  not  fatally  wounded,  form  the  sort  of  stage 
picture,  as  the  curtain  went  down,  that  has  sent  audi 
ences  home,  dissolved  in  happy  tears,  from  so  many 
theatres.  But  Shakespeare,  being  a  dramatist  as  well 
as  a  playwright,  learned  from  Hamlet  himself  that 
Hamlet  could  not  end  as  he  had  meant  him  to  end. 
Hamlet,  in  fact,  could  not  really  end  at  all,  and,  in  the 
sort  of  anticlimax  in  which  the  tragedy  closes,  he  must 
rise  from  death,  another  and  a  truer  ghost  than  the 
buried  majesty  of  Denmark,  and  walk  the  world  forever. 
Could  Eugenio,  however,  advise  his  youthful  corre- 

2S9 


IMAGINAKY    INTEEVIEWS 

spondents  to  work  so  reckless  of  their  original  concep 
tions  as  Shakespeare  had  probably  done?  The  ques 
tion  was  serious;  it  put  him  upon  his  conscience,  and 
he  decided  that  at  the  most  he  could  not  do  more  than 
urge  them,  with  all  the  earnestness  of  his  nature,  to 
write  their  Hamlets  from  the  beginning  forward,  and 
never  from  the  ending  backward,  even  in  their  own 
minds.  He  saw  that  if  he  were  to  answer  them  col 
lectively  (and  he  certainly  did  not  intend  to  answer 
them  severally)  he  must  say  that  their  only  hope  of 
producing  an  effective  whole  was  through  indefatigable 
work  upon  every  part.  Make  each  smallest  detail  beau 
tiful,  and  despise  none  because  it  seemed  to  perform 
a  poor  and  lowly  office  in  the  assemblage  of  the  parts. 
Let  these  youths  be  sure  that  they  could  not  know  the 
meaning  of  any  design  from  imagining  it,  but  only 
from  expressing  it,  and  that  the  true  result  could  come 
only  from  the  process.  They  could  not  hope  to  outdo 
Shakespeare  and  foreknow  their  respective  Hamlets; 
they  must  slowly  make  their  Hamlets'  acquaintance  by 
living  with  them. 

If  Eugenio's  correspondents  were  dashed  by  this  hard 
saying,  he  thought  he  might  raise  their  spirits  by  adding 
that  they  would  find  compensation  for  their  slow,  ardu 
ous  toil  in  particulars  from  a  fact  which  he  had  noted 
in  his  own  case.  A  thing  well  done  looks  always  very 
much  better  in  the  retrospect  than  could  have  been 
hoped.  A  good  piece  of  work  would  smile  radiantly 
upon  them  when  it  was  accomplished.  Besides,  after  a 
certain  experience  in  doing,  they  would  learn  that  the 
greatest  happiness  which  could  corne  to  them  from  their 
work  would  be  through  the  perfecting  of  details.  This 
would  make  their  performance  a  succession  of  little 
victories  which  alone  could  constitute  the  great  ultimate 
triumph. 

290 


THE    COUNSEL    OF    LITERARY    AGE 

"  But  style,  but  style !"  they  might  return.  "  What 
about  style?  That  was  one  of  the  miracles  we  asked 
you  the  sleight  of,  and  are  yon  going  to  say  nothing 
about  that  ?  Or  did  you  mean  style,  in  your  talk  about 
perfecting  details?  Do  you  want  us  to  take  infinite 
pains  in  acquiring  a  style  ?" 

"  By  no  means,"  Eugenio  was  prepared  to  declare 
in  the  event  of  this  come-back.  "  Do  not  think  about 
style.  If  you  do  your  work  well,  patiently,  faithfully, 
truly,  style  will  infallibly  be  added  unto  you.  That  is 
the  one  thing  you  must  not  try  for.  If  you  try  for 
style,  you  will  be  like  a  man  thinking  about  his  clothes 
or  his  manners.  You  will  be  self-conscious,  which  is 
the  fatal  opposite  of  being  yourself.  You  will  be  your 
self  when  you  are  lost  in  your  work,  and  then  you  will 
come  into  the  only  style  that  is  proper  to  you:  the 
beauty  and  the  grace  that  any  sort  of  workman  has 
in  the  exercise  of  his  craft.  You  will  then  have,  with 
out  seeking  it,  your  own  swing  of  phrase,  your  own  turn 
of  expression,  your  own  diction,  and  these  will  be  your 
style  by  which  every  reader  will  know  you.  But  if  you 
have  a  manner  which  you  have  borrowed  or  imitated, 
people  will  see  that  it  is  second-hand  and  no  better  than 
something  shop-worn  or  cast  off.  Besides,  style  is  a 
thing  that  has  been  grossly  overvalued  in  the  general 
appraisal  of  literary  qualities.  The  stylists  are  not  the 
greatest  artists,  the  supreme  artists.  Who  would  think 
of  Shakespeare  as  a  stylist,  or  Tolstoy,  or  Dante  ?" 

Eugenio  thought  he  could  count  upon  a  vanity  in  his 
correspondents  so  dense  as  not  to  be  pierced  by  any 
irony.  In  fact,  it  could  not  be  said  that,  though  he  felt 
the  pathos  of  their  appeals,  he  greatly  respected  the 
motives  which  actuated  them  in  writing  to  him.  They 
themselves  respected  their  motives  because  they  did  not 
know  them  as  he  did,  but  probably  they  did  not  pity 

291 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

themselves  so  much  as  he  pitied  them.  He  realized  that 
they  turned  to  him  from  a  literary  remoteness  which 
they  did  not  realize,  and  it  was  very  natural  that  they 
should  turn  for  help  outside  their  circumstance;  but 
Eugenio  had  not  lived  to  his  age  without  learning  that 
many  natural  impulses  are  mistaken  if  not  wrong.  He 
reflected  sadly  that  those  far-off  solitaries  could  alone 
burst  their  circumstance  and  find  their  way  out  of  it. 
He  perceived  that  they  could  do  this  only  by  their  own 
devout  and  constant  toil  in  the  line  of  their  aspiration. 
But  would  it  avail  to  tell  them  so  ? 

One  of  the  knowledges  of  a  period  of  life  which  we 
will  call  the  riper  maturity  is  that  we  need  all  the  ac 
cumulated  vigilance  of  the  past  to  secure  us  from  the 
ever-besetting  dangers  of  the  present:  the  dangers  of 
indolence,  of  slovenly  performance,  of  indistinct  vision, 
of  weakening  conscience  in  our  work.  We  need  every 
atom  of  force,  every  particle  of  the  stored  electricity  of 
youth,  to  keep  us  going  in  later  years.  While  we  are 
still  young  we  are  aware  of  an  environing  and  per 
vading  censure,  corning  from  the  rivalry,  the  envy,  the 
generous  emulation,  the  approval,  the  disapproval,  the 
love,  the  hate  of  all  those  wrho  witness  our  endeavor. 
~No  smallest  slip,  no  slightest  defect  will  be  lost  upon 
this  censure,  equally  useful  whether  sympathetic  or  an 
tipathetic.  But  as  we  grow  old  we  are  sensible  of  a 
relaxing,  a  lifting,  a  withdrawal  of  the  environing  and 
pervading  censure.  We  have  become  the  objects  of  a 
compassionate  toleration  or  a  contemptuous  indiffer 
ence  ;  it  no  longer  matters  greatly  to  the  world  whether 
we  do  our  work  well  or  ill.  But  if  we  love  our  work 
as  we  ought  till  we  die,  it  should  matter  more  than 
ever  to  us  whether  we  do  it  well  or  ill.  We  have  come 
to  the  most  perilous  days  of  our  years  when  we  are 
tempted  not  so  much  to  slight  our  work  as  to  spare  our 

292 


THE    COUNSEL    OF    LITERARY    AGE 

nerves,  in  which  the  stored  electricity  is  lower  and 
scanter  than  it  was,  and  to  let  a  present  feeble  per 
formance  blight  the  fame  of  strenuous  achievements 
in  the  past.  We  may  then  make  our  choice  of  two 
things  —  stop  working ;  stop  going,  cease  to  move,  to 
exist  —  or  gather  at  each  successive  effort  whatever 
remains  of  habit,  of  conscience,  of  native  force,  and 
put  it  into  effect  till  our  work,  which  we  have  not 
dropped,  drops  us. 

Should  Eugenio  address  these  hard  sayings  to  his 
appealing,  his  palpitating  correspondents?  He  found 
himself  on  the  point  of  telling  them  that  of  all  the 
accumulated  energies  which  could  avail  them  when  they 
came  of  his  age,  or  were  coming  of  it,  there  was  none 
that  would  count  for  so  much  as  the  force  of  habit; 
and  what  could  be  more  banal  than  that?  It  would 
not  save  it  from  banality  if  he  explained  that  he  meant 
the  habit  of  loving  the  very  best  one  can  do,  and  doing 
that  and  not  something  less.  It  would  still  be  banal 
to  say  that  now  in  their  youth  was  the  only  time  they 
would  have  to  form  the  habit  of  tirelessly  doing  their 
best  at  every  point,  and  that  they  could  not  buy  or 
beg  or  borrow  such  a  habit  for  the  simple  reason  that 
nobody  who  had  it  could  sell  or  give  or  lend  it. 

Besides,  as  Eugenio  very  well  perceived,  his  corre 
spondents  were  not  only  young  now,  but  were  always 
intending  to  be  so.  He  remembered  how  it  used  to  be 
with  himself,  and  that  was  how  it  used  to  be.  He  saw 
abundance  of  old,  or  older,  people  about  him,  but  he 
himself  instinctively  expected  to  live  on  and  on,  with 
out  getting  older,  and  to  hive  up  honey  from  experi 
ence  without  the  beeswax  which  alone  they  seemed  to 
have  stored  from  the  opening  flowers  of  the  past.  Yet, 
in  due  course  of  time,  he  found  himself  an  old  or  older 
man  simply  through  living  On  and  on  and  not  dyin" 

293 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

earlier.  Upon  the  whole,  he  liked  it  and  would  not 
have  gone  back  and  died  earlier  if  he  could.  But  he 
felt  that  it  would  be  useless  trying  to  convince  his 
youthful  correspondents  that,  whether  they  liked  it  or 
not,  they  too  would  grow  old,  or  older,  if  they  lived. 
How,  then,  teach  them  by  precept,  if  they  would  not 
learn  by  universal  example,  that  unless  they  were  to 
be  very  miserable  old  men,  and  even  miserable  old 
women,  they  must  have  the  habit  of  work?  How  in 
struct  them  further  that  unless  they  had  the  habit  of 
good  work,  patient,  faithful,  fine  work,  the  habit  which 
no  one  can  buy,  beg,  or  borrow,  because  no  one  can 
sell,  give,  or  lend  it,  they  were  worse  than  idle,  cum- 
berers  of  the  earth,  with  no  excuse  for  being  above  it  ? 
If  he  had  set  out  to  do  that,  they  might  have  re 
torted  upon  him  that  he  was  making  a  petty  personal 
matter  of  art,  which  was  not  only  so  much  longer  than 
life,  but  so  much  wider,  deeper,  and  higher.  In  this 
event  he  saw  that  he  would  have  nothing  for  it  but  to 
confirm  his  correspondents  in  their  disappointment  with 
him  by  declaring  that  art  was  a  personal  matter,  and 
that  though  longer,  it  was  not  wider,  deeper,  or  higher 
than  life,  and  could  not  be.  It  might  be  mysterious  in 
being  personal,  but  it  was  not  necessarily  petty.  It 
would  be  great  if  the  artist  was  so,  but  not  otherwise ; 
it  could  be  fine  on  no  other  terms.  There  was  a  theory 
and  an  appearance  that  it  existed  somehow  apart  from 
the  artist  and  that  it  made  him.  But  the  fact  was  he 
made  it,  partly  wittingly,  partly  unwittingly;  and  it- 
had  no  being  except  in  his  achievement.  The  power 
of  imagining  a  work  of  art  was  the  gift  of  nature,  as 
being  long  or  short,  dark  or  fair  was.  The  concern  of 
him  it  was  given  to  was  how,  after  he  found  it  out,  to 
make  the  most  of  his  gift.  It  had  no  power  to  make 
much  or  little  of  him.  If  he  cherished  it  and  served 

294 


THE    COUNSEL    OF    LITEKAKY    AGE 

it,  when  he  had  made  sure  of  it,  by  fulfilling  the  law 
that  its  possession  imposed,  then  it  would  rise  up  in 
something  he  had  clone  and  call  him  master. 

But  how  could  Eugenio  make  such  things — so  true 
and  yet  so  self-contradictory,  so  mutually  repellent — 
clear  to  these  simple-hearted  young  correspondents  of 
his  ?  The  more  he  thought  of  the  matter,  the  more  he 
resolved  to  do  nothing  about  it. 


THE   UNSATISFACTORINESS    OF   UNFRIENDLY 
CRITICISM 

IT  was  the  experience  of  Eugenio  that  the  criticisms 
of  his  books,  when  they  were  unfriendly,  presented  a 
varying  offence,  rather  than  a  cumulative  offence,  as 
the  years  wore  on.  The  criticisms  of  one's  books  are 
always  hard  to  bear  if  they  are  unfavorable,  but  he 
thought  that  displeasure  for  displeasure  the  earlier  re 
fusal  to  allow  him  certain  merits  was  less  displeasing 
than  the  later  consent  to  take  these  merits  for  granted. 
To  be  taken  for  granted  in  any  wise  is  to  be  limited. 
It  is  tantamount  to  having  it  said  of  one  that,  yes,  one 
has  those  virtues,  but  one  has  no  others.  It  comes 
also  to  saying  that  one  has,  of  course,  the  defects  of 
one's  virtues ;  though  Eugenio  noted  that,  when  certain 
defects  of  his  were  taken  for  granted,  it  did  not  so 
distinctly  and  immediately  follow  that  he  was  supposed 
to  have  the  virtues  of  these. 

Now,  Eugenio's  theory  of  himself  was  that  he  was 
not  limited,  and  that,  if  he  modestly  stopped  short  of 
infinity,  it  was  because  he  chose.  He  had  a  feeling  of 
always  breaking  new  ground ;  and  he  did  not  like  being 
told  that  he  was  tilling  the  old  glebe  and  harvesting  the 
same  crops,  or  that  in  the  little  garden-ground  where 
he  let  his  fancy  play  he  was  culling  flowers  of  such 
familiar  tint  and  scent  that  they  seemed  to  be  the  very 
flowers  he  had  picked  thirty  or  forty  years  before. 

206 " 


UNFRIENDLY    CRITICISM 

What  made  it  harder  to  endure  suggestion  of  this  sort 
was  that  in  his  feeling  of  always  breaking  new  ground 
there  was  an  inner  sense,  or  fear,  or  doubt,  that  perhaps 
it  was  not  really  virgin  soil  he  was  turning  up,  but 
merely  the  sod  of  fields  which  had  lain  fallow  a  year 
or  two  or  had  possibly  been  cropped  the  season  before. 

The  misgiving  was  forced  upon  him  by  certain  ap 
pearances  in  the  work  of  other  veteran  authors.  When 
he  took  up  the  last  book  of  some  lifelong  favorite,  no 
matter  how  great  a  master  he  knew  him  still  to  be,  he 
could  not  help  seeing  that  the  poor  old  master  was  re 
peating  himself,  though  he  would  not  have  phrased  the 
case  in  such  brutal  terms.  Then  the  chill  wonder  how 
long  he  could  hope  to  escape  the  like  fate  pierced  him, 
and  for  a  moment  he  could  not  silence  the  question 
whether  it  might  not  have  already  befallen  him.  In 
another  moment  he  knew  better,  and  was  justly  ag 
grieved  with  the  next  reviewer  who  took  things  in  him 
for  granted,  quite  as  offensively  if  they  were  merits 
as  if  they  were  defects.  It  was  vital  to  him  to  be  al 
ways  breaking  new  ground,  and,  if  at  times  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  had  turned  this  or  that  furrow  before,  he 
said  to  himself  that  it  was  merely  one  of  those  intima 
tions  of  pre-existence  which  are  always  teasing  us  here 
with  the  sense  of  experience  in  circumstances  absolutely 
novel ;  and  he  hoped  that  no  one  else  would  notice  the 
coincidence. 

He  was,  indeed,  tolerably  safe  from  the  chance,  for 
it  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  literary  criticism  that  the 
reviewers  shall  be  nearly  always  young  persons.  They, 
if  they  alone  are  capable  of  the  cruelties  they  some 
times  practise,  are  alone  capable  of  the  enthusiasms 
which  supply  publishers  with  quotable  passages  for 
their  advertisements,  and  which  lift  authors'  hearts  in 
pride  and  joy.  It  is  to  their  advantage  that  they  £%en- 
20  297 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

erallv  bring  to  the  present  work  of  a  veteran  author 
an  ignorance  of  all  that  he  has  done  before,  and  have 
the  zest  for  it  which  the  performance  of  a  novice  in 
spires.  They  know  he  is  not  a  novice,  of  course,  and 
they  recognize  his  book  as  that  of  a  veteran,  but  they 
necessarily  treat  it  as  representative  of  his  authorship. 
Of  course,  if  it  is  his  twentieth  or  thirtieth  book,  or 
his  fortieth  or  fiftieth,  it  is  merely  one  of  a  long  series 
which  fully  represents  him.  Even  these  collectively 
represent  him  inadequately  as  long  as  he  is  adding  to 
them,  if  he  has  the  habit,  like  Eugenic,  of  always 
breaking  new  ground.  The  reviewer,  however,  is  prob 
ably  much  newer  than  the  ground  which  the  estab 
lished  author  breaks  in  his  last  book,  and,  coming  to 
it  in  his  generous  ignorance,  which  he  has  to  conceal 
under  a  mask  of  smiling  omniscience,  he  condemns  or 
praises  it  without  reference  to  the  work  which  has  gone 
before  it  and  which  it  is  merely  part  of,  though  of 
course  it  has  entirety  enough  of  a  sort  to  stand  alone. 
If  the  author  has  broken  ground  in  the  direction  of  a 
new  type  of  heroine,  the  reviewer,  by  the  conditions  of 
his  calling,  is  all  but  obliged  to  say  that  here  is  one 
of  those  enchanting  girls  whom  the  author  in  question 
has  endeared  to  generations  of  readers ;  or  one  of  those 
tedious  prudes  for  whom  his  name  is  a  synonyme.  If, 
after  many  psychological  romances,  the  author  has 
stepped  down  to  the  level  of  actual  life,  he  is  praised 
or  blamed  for  the  vital  or  servile  naturalism  of  his 
work;  or  if  the  contrary  is  the  case,  he  has  to  read  of 
himself  as  doing  something  habitual  and  entirely  char 
acteristic  of  him.  In  vain,  so  far  as  that  acute  young 
critic  is  concerned,  has  he  broken  new  ground.  But  if 
he  has  with  much  compunction  consciously  turned  his 
furrows  in  a  field  tilled  before,  he  stands  a  fair  chance 
of  being  hailed  at  the  outset  of  a  new  career. 

298 


UNFRIENDLY    CRITICISM 

He  cannot  openly  complain,  and  if  he  could  the  critic 
cannot  help  being  what  he  is.  If  the  critic  were  older 
and  more  versed  in  the  veteran  author,  he  might  not 
like  him  so  well,  and  he  could  not,  at  any  rate,  bring 
the  fresh  interest  to  his  work  which  the  young  reviewer 
brings.  What  Eugenio  would  really  wish  would  be  to 
have  each  successive  book  of  his  given  for  review  to 
some  lifelong  admirer,  some  dear  and  faithful  friend, 
all  the  better  for  not  being  an  acquaintance,  who  had 
liked  him  from  the  beginning  and  was  intimately  versed 
in  all  his  work.  Such  a  critic  would  know  that  Eu 
genio  was  always  breaking  new  ground,  and  that  he  was 
never  more  true  to  this  inherent  tendency  than  when 
he  seemed  to  be  ploughing  the  same  old  furrows  in  the 
same  old  fields.  Such  a  critic  would  be  alert  to  detect 
those  fine  differences  of  situation  which  distinguish  a 
later  from  an  earlier  predicament.  He  would  note  with 
unfailing  perspicacity  the  shades  of  variance  which  con 
stitute  Florindo  an  essentially  novel  character  when 
presented  under  the  name  of  Lindoro,  or  Floribella  a 
fresh  delight  when  she  reappears  as  Doralinda.  Even 
when  he  could  not  deny  that  these  persons  were  in  them 
selves  one  and  the  same,  he  would  be  able  to  make  the 
reader  observe  that  the  new  light  thrown  upon  them  by 
the  author's  ever-renascent  art  revealed  in  familiar  crea 
tions  traits  of  mind  and  charms  of  spirit  unimagined 
before.  He  would  insist  that,  if  not  new,  they  were 
newer,  because  being  more  fully  ascertained  they  were 
truer.  He  would  boldly  recur  to  the  personages  in 
Eugenio's  former  books  whom  they  reminded  one  of, 
and,  studying  them  in  contrast,  would  convince  the 
reader  that  the  increasing  purpose  of  the  author  in 
the  treatment  of  the  well-known  types  had  been  to  re 
veal  the  infinite  variety  of  character  which  lay  hid  in 
each  and  every  human  type. 

'  299 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

Some  such,  reviewer,  Eugenio  thought,  all  journals 
pretending  to  literary  authority  ought  to  keep  on  their 
staff  for  the  comfort  of  veteran  authors  and  for  the 
dispensation  of  that  more  delicate  and  sympathetic 
justice  which  their  case  required.  It  might  be  well 
enough  to  use  a  pair  of  ordinary  steelyards,  or  even 
hay-scales,  in  weighing  out  the  rewards  and  punish 
ments  of  younger  authors,  but  some  such  sensitive  bal 
ance  as  only  the  sympathetic  nerves  of  equal  years,  and, 
if  possible,  equal  intelligence,  could  adjust  ought  to  be 
used  in  ascertaining  the  merits  of  a  veteran  author. 

In  his  frankest  self-consciousness,  Eugenio  did  not 
say  a  veteran  author  like  himself,  and  he  did  not  insist 
exclusively  upon  a  veteran  critic  for  his  behoof.  There 
were  times  when  he  thought  that  a  young  critic,  coming 
in  the  glow  of  adolescence  and  the  freshness  of  knowl 
edge  won  from  the  recent  study  of  all  his  works,  might 
be  better  fitted  to  appreciate  the  qualities  of  the  latest. 
He  quite  rejected  the  notion,  when  it  came  to  business, 
with  which  he  had  sometimes  played,  of  an  author  re 
viewing  his  own  books,  and  this  apart  from  his  sense  of 
its  immodesty.  In  the  course  of  his  experience  he  had 
known  of  but  one  really  great  author  who  had  done 
this,  and  then  had  done  it  upon  the  invitation  of  an 
editor  of  rare  if  somewhat  wilful  perspicacity,  who  in 
vited  the  author  to  do  it  on  the  ground  that  no  one  else 
could  do  it  so  well.  But  though  he  would  not  have 
liked  to  be  his  own  reviewer,  because  it  was  not  seemly, 
he  chiefly  feared  that  if  put  upon  his  honor,  as  he 
would  be  in  such  a  case,  he  must  deal  with  his  work 
so  damagingly  as  to  leave  little  or  nothing  of  it.  He 
might  make  the  reputation  of  a  great  critic,  but  in  do 
ing  execution  upon  his  own  shortcomings  he  might  be 
the  means  of  destroying  himself  as  a  great  author. 

After  all,  authors  are  not  the  self-satisfied  generation 
300 


UNFRIENDLY    CRITICISM 

they  must  often  seem  to  the  public  which  has  tried  to 
spoil  them  with  praise.  There  is  much  in  doing  a 
thing  which  makes  a  man  modest  in  regard  to  the  way 
he  has  done  it.  Even  if  he  knows  that  he  has  done  it 
well,  if  the  testimony  of  all  his  faculties  is  to  that  ef 
fect,  there  is  somehow  the  lurking  sense  that  it  was  not 
he  who  really  did  it,  but  that  there  is  a  power,  to  turn 
Matthew  Arnold's  phrase  to  our  use,  "  not  ourselves, 
that  works  for  "  beauty  as  well  as  righteousness,  and 
that  it  was  this  mystical  force  which  wrought  through 
him  to  the  exquisite  result.  If  you  come  to  the  second- 
best  results,  to  the  gold  so  alloyed  that  you  may  con 
fidently  stamp  it  your  own,  do  you  wish  to  proclaim  it 
the  precious  metal  without  alloy  ?  Do  you  wish  to  de 
clare  that  it  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  quite  as  good 
as  pure  gold,  or  even  better?  Do  you  hold  yourself 
quit  of  the  duty  of  saying  that  it  is  second-best,  that  it 
is  something  mixed  with  copper  or  nickel,  and  of  the 
value  of  oroide,  say?  You  cannot  bring  yourself  to 
this  extreme  of  candor,  and  what  right,  then,  have  you 
to  recognize  that  something  else  is  fine  gold  when  it 
is  really  so?  Ought  not  you  to  feign  that  it  is  only 
about  thirteen  carats  when  it  is  actually  eighteen  ? 

Considerations  like  these  always  stayed  Eugenio 
when  it  came  to  the  point  of  deciding  whether  he  would 
care  to  be  his  own  reviewer,  but  the  desire  to  be  ade 
quately  reviewed  still  remained  with  him,  a  fond  long 
ing  amid  repeated  disappointments.  An  author  often 
feels  that  he  has  got  too  much  praise,  though  he  never 
has  got  all  he  wants.  "  Why  don't  they  clap  ?"  Doctor 
Holmes  once  whimsically  demanded,  speaking  of  his 
audiences  in  those  simple  early  days  when  he  went 
about  lecturing  like  Emerson  and  Alcott  and  other 
saints  and  sages  of  New  England.  "  Do  they  think  I 
can't  stand  it?  Why  don't  they  give  me  three  times 

301 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

three?  I  can  stand  it  very  well."  An  author  may 
sometimes  think  he  is  fulsomely  praised  and  may  even 
feel  a  sort  of  disgust  for  the  slab  adulation  trowelled 
upon  him,  but  his  admirer  need  not  fear  being  accused 
of  insincerity.  He  may  confidently  count  upon  being 
regarded  as  a  fine  fellow  who  has  at  worst  gone  wrong 
in  the  right  direction.  It  ought,  therefore,  to  be  a  very 
simple  matter  to  content  a  veteran  author  in  the  article 
of  criticism,  but  somehow  it  is  not. 

Perhaps  the  trouble  is  in  the  nature  of  criticism, 
which,  unwillingly  enough,  no  doubt,  assumes  to  be  and 
to  do  more  than  it  can.  Its  convention  is  that  it  is  an 
examination  of  a  book  and  a  report  upon  its  qualities. 
But  it  is  not  such  a  report,  and  it  cannot  be  in  the 
limits  assigned  it,  which  are  the  only  tolerable  limits 
with  the  reader.  The  author  would  not  mind  if  the 
critic's  report  were  physically  commensurate  with  his 
book;  but,  of  course,  the  reader  could  not  stand  that; 
and,  generous  as  they  are,  other  authors  might  com 
plain.  Sometimes,  as  it  is,  they  think  that  any  one  of 
their  number  who  gets  something  like  a  good  report 
from  a  critic  is  getting  more  than  his  deserts.  Yet  au 
thors,  though  a  difficult,  are  not  an  impossible  genera 
tion.  Few  of  them  would  allow  that  they  are  even  un 
reasonable  with  regard  to  criticism,  and  they  would 
probably  hail  any  improvement  in  its  theories  and  meth 
ods  with  gratitude. 

As  criticism  cannot  be  an  adequate  report  upon  the 
qualities  of  a  book,  even  a  book  which  has  not  been 
examined,  why  should  it  assume  to  do  more  than  talk 
about  it  and  talk  all  the  better  for  being  merely  tenta 
tive  and  altogether  unfinal  ?  Nobody  can  really  be  au 
thoritative  concerning  anything,  for  there  is  no  one 
whose  wisdom  will  not  be  disputed  by  others  of  the 
wise.  The  best  way,  then,  might  be  for  a  reviewer  to 

302 


UNFRIENDLY    CRITICISM 

go  round  collecting  sentiment  and  opinion  about  the 
book  he  means  to  talk  of,  and  then  to  give  as  many 
qualifying  varieties  of  impression  as  the  general  uii- 
handsomeness  of  human  nature  will  allow  him  to  give 
when  they  differ  from  his  own  impression.  On  the 
terms  of  the  old  and  still  accepted  convention  of  criti 
cism,  Eugenio  had  himself  done  a  vast  deal  of  review 
ing,  an  amount  of  it,  in  fact,  that  he  could  not  consider 
without  amaze,  and  in  all  this  reviewing  he  had  not 
once  satisfied  himself  with  his  work.  Never  once  had 
he  written  a  criticism  which  seemed  to  him  adequate, 
or  more  than  an  approximation  to  justice,  even  when 
he  had  most  carefully,  almost  prayerfully,  examined 
the  work  he  reported  upon.  He  was  aware  of  writing 
from  this  mood  or  that,  of  feeling  hampered  by  editorial 
conditions,  of  becoming  impatient  or  jaded,  and  finally 
employing  the  hay-scales  when  he  ought  to  have  used 
the  delicate  balances  with  which  one  weighs  out  life- 
giving  elixirs  or  deadly  poisons.  But  he  used  to  im 
agine  that  if  he  could  have  put  himself  in  the  attitude 
of  easy  discussion  or  light  comment,  instead  of  the 
judicial  pose  he  felt  obliged  to  take,  he  could  have  ad 
ministered  a  far  finer  and  more  generous  measure  of 
justice.  In  these  moments  he  used  to  wonder  whether 
something  stated  and  organized  in  the  way  of  intelli 
gent  talk  about  books  might  not  be  substituted  for  the 
conventional  verdicts  and  sentences  of  the  courts  of 
criticism. 

In  this  notion  he  proceeded  upon  a  principle  evolved 
from  his  own  experience  in  fields  far  from  the  flinty 
and  sterile  ranges  of  criticism.  He  had  not  only  done 
much  reviewing  in  those  days,  but  he  had  already  writ 
ten  much  in  the  kinds  which  he  could  not,  in  his 
modesty,  bring  himself  to  call  "  creative,"  though  ho 
did  not  mind  others  calling:  it  so.  Whatever  had  been 

303 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

the  shortcomings  of  the  conventional  reports  upon  his 
work,  it  was  his  glad  experience  that  nothing  he  said 
or  meant,  not  the  slightest  intention  or  airiest  intima 
tion  in  his  books,  was  ever  wholly  lost.  Somewhere, 
some  one,  somehow  had  caught  it,  liked  it,  remembered 
it,  and  had  by  a  happy  inspiration  written  him  of  it, 
it  might  be  diffident,  it  might  be  confident,  of  his  pleas 
ure  in  the  recognition. 

Such  recognition  was  always  more  precious  than  the 
reports  of  the  conventional  critics,  though  if  these  were 
favorable  the  author  was  glad  of  them,  as  of  any  good 
that  the  gods  gave.  But  what  struck  Eugenio  was 
that  such  recognition  was  the  real,  the  very,  the  vital 
criticism,  and  that  if  it  could  be  evoked  in  behalf  of 
others,  in  its  sincerity,  it  might  be  helpful  to  the  cause 
of  literature  far  beyond  anything  that  the  courts  of 
criticism  could  do  or  effect  in  its  behalf.  After  all,  as 
he  said  to  himself,  an  author  wrote  for  his  readers  and 
not  for  his  critics,  for  pleasure  and  not  for  judgment ; 
and  if  he  could  be  assured  publicly,  as  he  sometimes 
was  assured  privately,  that  nothing  he  did  was  lost,  he 
might  be  encouraged  to  keep  on  doing  his  best.  Why, 
indeed,  should  not  there  be  a  critical  journal  embody 
ing  in  a  species  of  fragrant  bouquet  the  flowers  of 
thought  and  emotion  springing  up  in  the  brains  and 
bosoms  of  readers  responsive  to  the  influence  of  a  new 
book?  Such  readers  would  have  only  to  suppose  them 
selves  addressing  the  author  direct,  and  the  thing  could 
be  done.  It  might  be  done  in  another  way  by  the  au 
thors  contributing  the  praises  privately  sent  him.  In 
a  time  when  personal  letters  to  authors  are  constantly 
quoted  in  advertisements,  this  might  not  seem  so  im 
modest  as  in  some  earlier  literary  condition. 

In  the  mean  time  the  question  of  what  shall  be  done 
for  veteran  authors  who  are  always  breaking  new 

304 


UNFRIENDLY    CRITICISM 

ground  still  remains,  and  it  is  complicated  by  a  fact 
of  psychological  import  for  the  reader  as  well  as  the 
author.  What  first  gives  an  author  his  hold  upon  the 
reader  is  not  the  novelty  of  his  theme,  but  a  pleasing, 
it  may  be  a  painfully  pleasing,  quality  which  in  its  pe 
culiar  variation  must  be  called  his  personal  quality.  It 
is  the  sense  of  this  in  each  of  his  successive  books  which 
deepens  his  hold  upon  the  reader,  and  not  the  style,  or 
the  characters,  or  the  intrigue.  As  long  as  this  personal 
quality  delights,  he  is  new  whether  he  breaks  new 
ground  or  not,  or  he  is  newly  welcome.  With  his  own 
generation,  with  the  readers  who  began  young  with  him 
and  have  grown  old  with  him,  he  is  always  safe.  But 
there  is  danger  for  him  with  the  readers  who  begin 
young  with  him  after  he  has  grown  old.  It  is  they 
who  find  his  tales  twice  told  and  himself  hackneyed, 
unless  they  have  been  trained  to  like  his  personal 
quality  by  their  elders.  This  might  be  difficult,  but 
it  is  not  impossible,  and  ought  not  it  to  be  the  glad, 
the  grateful  care  of  such  elders  ? 


VI 

THE  FICKLENESS  OF  AGE 

ALL  forms  of  literature  probably  hold  a  great  deal 
more  meaning  than  people  commonly  get  out  of  them; 
but  prose  may  be  likened  to  a  cup  which  one  can  easily 
see  to  the  bottom  of,  though  it  is  often  deeper  and  fuller 
than  it  looks;  while  verse  is  the  fount  through  which 
thought  and  feeling  continually  bubble  from  the  heart 
of  things.  The  sources  that  underlie  all  life  may  be 
finding  vent  in  a  rhyme  where  the  poet  imagined  he  was 
breathing  some  little,  superficial  vein  of  his  own;  but 
in  the  reader  he  may  unawares  have  reached  the  wells 
of  inmost  passion  and  given  them  release.  The  reader 
may  himself  live  with  a  certain  verse  and  be  aware  of 
it  now  and  then  merely  as  a  teasing  iterance  that 

"  Erom  some  odd  corner  of  the  mind 
Beats  time  to  nothing  in  the  brain." 

But  suddenly  some  experience,  or  perhaps  the  exfolia 
tion  of  the  outer  self  through  the  falling  away  of  the 
withered  years,  shall  open  to  him  its  vital  and  cosmical 
significance.  He  shall  know  then  that  it  is  not  an  idle 
whisper  of  song,  but  a  message  to  his  soul  from  the 
senate  where  the  immortals  gather  in  secular  counsel 
and  muse  the  wisdom  of  all  the  centuries  since  hu 
manity  came  to  its  earliest  consciousness.  The  bearer 
of  the  message  mav  not  have  known  it  in  the  translation 

308 


THE    FICKLENESS    OF    AGE 

which  it  wears  to  the  receiver;  each  must  read  it  in 
his  own  tongue  and  read  meaning  into  it;  perhaps  it 
always  takes  two  to  make  a  poet,  and  singer  and  listener 
are  the  twin  spheres  that  form  one  star. 

A  valued  correspondent  of  ours,  one  of  those  whose 
letters  are  oftener  than  we  should  like  to  own  fraught 
with  the  suggestion  of  our  most  fortunate  inspirations, 
believes  himself  to  have  been  recently  the  confidant  of 
the  inner  sense  of  certain  lines  in  a  familiar  poem  of 
Longfellow's.  Its  refrain  had,  from  the  first  reading, 
chanted  in  the  outer  chamber  of  his  ear,  but  suddenly, 
the  other  day,  it  sang  to  his  soul  with  a  newly  realized 
purport  in  the  words, 

"  A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will, 
And  the  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts." 

The  words  are,  as  the  poet  promptly  declares,  the  bur 
den  of  a  Lapland  song,  which  "  is  haunting  his  memory 
still,"  which  "  murmurs  and  whispers  still,"  which  "  is 
singing  and  saying  still,"  which  "  is  mournful  "  and 
"sweet"  and  "fitful"  and  "fatal"  and  "strange" 
and  "  beautiful."  Yet  he  seems  not  to  have  known,  as 
our  friend  now  thinks  he  himself  knows,  that  they  ex 
press  a  difference,  unrecognized  hitherto,  between  youtli 
and  age,  and  rightfully  attribute  to  the  young  a  stead 
fastness  and  persistence  in  objects  and  ideals  formerly 
supposed  the  distinguishing  qualities  of  the  old.  In 
other  words,  they  have  precipitated  into  his  conscious 
ness  a  truth  unwittingly  held  in  solution  by  both  the 
poets  in  their  verse.  Or,  if  it  was  conveyed  to  him  by 
their  sensible  connivance,  he  is  the  first  who  has  been 
made  its  repositary.  Or,  if  he  cannot  claim  an  exclusive 
property  in  the  revelation,  it  is  now  his,  in  his  turn, 
by  that  sad  right  of  seniority  whose  advantages  are  not 
ours  till  there  are  few  or  none  left  to  contest  them  with 

307 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

us.  One  has  not  been  promoted  to  them  because  of  any 
merit  or  achievement ;  one  has  simply  lived  into  them ; 
and  how  much  of  one  has  died  in  the  process  of  sur 
vival  !  The  lines  speak  to  our  friend's  age  a  language 
which  his  youth  could  not  have  understood,  and  it  is 
because  he  is  no  longer  young  that  he  perceives  how 
long  the  thoughts  of  youth  were  and  how  brief  the 
thoughts  of  age. 

He  had  always  fancied  that  his  later  years  should  be 
a  time  of  repose  in  the  faiths,  loves,  and  joys  through 
which  he  realized  himself.  But  nothing  apparently 
was  farther  from  the  fact.  Such  length  of  thoughts 
as  he  had,  such  abiding  pleasures,  such  persistent 
hopes,  were  from  his  youth;  and  the  later  sort  were 
as  the  leaves  of  the  tree  to  the  tree  itself.  He  put 
them  forth  at  the  beginning  of  an  epoch,  a  season,  and 
they  dropped  from  him  at  the  close.  In  as  great  bit 
terness  as  is  consonant  with  his  temperament  he  has 
asked  us  why  youth  should  ever  have  been  deemed  fickle 
and  age  constant  when  so  precisely  the  contrary  is  true. 
Youth,  he  owns,  is  indeed  full  of  vain  endeavors  and  of 
enterprises  that  come  to  nothing,  but  it  is  far  more  fixed 
than  age  in  its  aspirations.  His  aspirations  change  now 
with  such  rapidity  that  they  seem  different  not  only 
from  year  to  year,  but  from  month  to  month,  from 
day  to  day.  He  has  not  merely  discarded  his  old  ideals, 
he  loathes  them.  He  used  to  like  going  out  to  dinner, 
above  all  things;  and  he  was  fond  of  lunches,  even  of 
afternoon  teas;  but  in  a  day,  in  an  hour,  such  delights 
became  wearinesses  and  vexations  of  spirit.  Formerly 
he  enjoyed  travel  with  all  its  necessary  concomitants. 
It  amused  him  to  check  his  baggage  and  depart  from 
stations,  to  arrive  at  hotels  and  settle  himself  in  new 
rooms ;  the  very  domiciliation  in  sleeping-cars  or  the 
domestication  in  diners  had  a  charm  which  was  appar- 

308 


THE    FICKLENESS    OF    AGE 

ently  perennial ;  a  trip  in  a  river-boat  was  rapture ;  an 
ocean  voyage  was  ecstasy.  The  succession  of  strange 
faces,  new  minds,  was  an  unfailing  interest,  and  there 
was  no  occurrence,  in  or  out  of  the  ordinary,  which  did 
not  give  him  release  from  self  and  form  a  true  recrea 
tion.  The  theatre  does  not  amuse  him  now,  though  the 
time  has  been,  and  lately,  for  the  curtain,  when  it  rose 
on  a  play,  new  or  old,  to  lift  his  spirit  with  it  and  to 
hold  him  entranced  till  its  fall.  As  for  the  circus,  he 
once  rejoiced  in  all  its  feats;  performing  elephants 
could  not  bore  him,  nor  acts  of  horsemanship  stale  its 
infinite  variety.  But  the  time  has  come  abruptly  when 
the  smell  of  the  sawdust,  or  the  odor  of  the  trodden 
weed,  mixed  with  the  aroma  of  ice-cold  lemonade,  is  a 
stench  in  his  nostrils. 

These  changes  of  ideal  have  occurred,  not  through 
the  failure  of  any  powers  that  he  can  note  in  himself, 
but  as  part  of  the  great  change  from  youth  to  age,  which 
he  thinks  is  far  greater  morally  than  physically.  He 
is  still  fairly  strong;  he  has  not  lost  his  appetite  or 
the  teeth  to  gratify  it;  he  can  walk  his  miles,  always 
rather  two  than  ten,  and  rest  refreshed  from  them; 
except  that  he  does  not  like  to  kill  things,  he  could 
trudge  the  whole  day  through  fields  and  woods  with  his 
gun  on  his  shoulder ;  though  he  does  not  golf,  and  can 
not  know  whether  or  no  it  would  bore  him,  he  likes  to 
wield  the  axe  and  the  scythe  in  the  groves  and  meadows 
of  his  summer  place.  When  he  stretches  himself  on  the 
breast  of  the  mother  alike  of  flesh  and  grass,  it  is  with 
a  delicious  sense  of  her  restorative  powers  and  no  fear 
of  rheumatism.  If  he  rests  a  little  longer  than  he  once 
used,  he  is  much  more  rested  when  he  rises  from  his 
repose. 

His  body  rejoices  still  in  its  experiences,  but  not  his 
soul :  it  is  not  interested ;  it  does  not  care  to  have  known 

309 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

its  experiences  or  wish  to  repeat  them.  For  this  reason 
he  thinks  that  it  is  his  spirit  which  is  superannuated, 
while  its  "  muddy  vesture  of  decay  "  is  in  very  tolerable 
repair.  His  natural  man  is  still  comparatively  young, 
and  lives  on  in  the  long,  long  thoughts  of  youth;  but 
his  supernatural  man  has  aged,  with  certain  moral  ef 
fects  which  alarm  his  doubts  of  the  pleasures  he  once 
predicated  of  eternity.  "If  it  is  going  to  be  like  this 
with  me!"  he  says  to  himself,  and  shrinks  from  sup 
plying  the  responsive  clause  of  his  conditional. 

But  mainly  his  mind  turns  upon  itself  in  contempla 
tion  of  its  earthly  metamorphoses,  in  which  it  hardly 
knows  itself  for  the  mind  of  the  same  man.  Its  ap 
prehensions  are  for  the  time  when,  having  exhausted 
all  the  differences,  it  shall  care  for  none;  but  mean 
while  it  is  interested  in  noting  the  absurdity  of  that 
conventional  view  of  age  as  the  period  c .  fixed  ideals. 
It  may  be  the  period  of  fixed  habits,  of  those  helpless 
iterances  which  imply  no  intentions  or  purposes ;  but  it 
is  not  the  period  in  which  the  mind  continues  in  this 
or  that  desire  and  strives  for  its  fulfilment.  The  same 
poet  who  sang  at  second  hand  those  words  of  the  Lap 
land  song, 

"  The  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts/" 

erred,  to  our  friend's  sense,  in  singing  of 

"  The  young  heart  hot  and  restless, 
And  the  old  subdued  and  slow." 

He  believes  the  reverse  would  rightly  characterize  the 
heart  of  youth  and  the  heart  of  age.  Age  is  not  slow 
in  its  mental  motions;  it  is  hurried  and  anxious,  with 
that  awful  mystical  apprehension  of  the  swift-coming 
moment  when  time  shall  be  no  more  and  nothing  but 
eternity  shall  be  left.  It  is  not  subdued;  its  heart  is 

310 


THE    FICKLENESS    OF    AGE 

hot  with  rebellion  against  the  inevitable.  But  for  youth 
there  is  no  inevitable;  there  is  no  conclusion,  no  catas 
trophe,  which  it  may  not  hope  to  escape;  and,  so  it  is 
patient  of  chances,  it  is  glad  of  them.  Its  heart  is  not 
restless ;  it  is  quite  at  peace  in  the  bosom  which  is  secure 
of  all  the  time  there  is. 

Our  friend  believes  that  a  variety  of  popular  super 
stitions  will  fall  at  the  recognition  of  the  truth  in  this 
matter,  and  none  more  finally  than  that  which  attributes 
to  the  junior  partner  the  unhappiness  of  those  marriages 
in  which  youth  and  crabbed  age  try  to  live  together. 
In  such  hazardous  unions  the  junior  partner  is,  for 
some  unexplained  reason,  of  the  sex  which  has  the  re 
pute  of  a  generic  fickleness  as  well  as  the  supposed 
volatility  of  its  fewer  years.  Probably  repute  wrongs 
it  as  much  in  one  respect  as  in  the  other,  but  our  friend 
contends  only  for  greater  justice  to  it  in  the  last.  In 
the  light  that  he  has  come  into,  he  holds  that  where  such 
unions  are  unhappy,  though  they  may  have  been  formed 
with  a  fair  appearance  of  affection,  it  is  the  senior  part 
ner  who  is  to  blame  if  blame  may  ever  be  attached  to 
involuntary  change.  It  is  the  senior  partner  who  has 
wearied  first  of  the  companionship  and  wished  for  re 
lease  with  the  impatience  natural  to  age.  This  is  in 
tolerant  of  the  annoyances  which  seem  inherent  in  every 
union  of  the  kind,  and  impatient  of  those  differences 
of  temperament  which  tell  far  more  than  any  dispari 
ties  of  age,  and  which  exist  even  where  there  are  no 
such  disparities.  The  intolerance,  the  impatience,  is 
not  more  characteristic  of  the  husband  where  he  is  the 
elder  than  of  the  wife  in  the  much  fewer  instances  of 
her  seniority.  In  the  unions  where  two  old  people  join 
their  faltering  destinies,  the  risks  of  unhappiness  are, 
logically,  doubled ;  and  our  friend  holds  it  a  grotesque 
folly  to  expect  anything  else  of  marriages  in  which  two 


311 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

lovers,  disappointed  of  each  other  in  their  youth,  at 
tempt  to  repair  the  loss  in  their  age.  Where  any  such 
survive  into  later  life,  with  the  passion  of  earlier  life 
still  rife  in  their  hearts,  he  argues  that  they  had  much 
better  remain  as  they  are,  for  in  such  a  belated  union 
as  they  aspire  to  the  chances  are  overwhelmingly  against 
them. 

Very  probably,  like  other  discoverers,  he  is  too  much 
impressed  with  the  value  of  his  divination.  It  is  some 
thing  that,  at  any  rate,  can  appeal  for  recognition  only 
to  the  aged  or  the  aging.  With  these  we  could  imagine 
it  bringing  a  certain  consolation,  a  relief  from  vain 
regret,  an  acquittal  from  self-accusation.  If  one  has 
suddenly  changed  for  no  apparent  reason,  one  must 
be  glad  to  find  a  reason  in  the  constitution  of  things, 
and  to  attribute  one's  fickleness  to  one's  time  of  life. 
Youth's  errors  have  possibly  been  too  much  condoned 
upon  grounds  where  age  could  more  justly  base  its  de 
fence.  It  may  be  more  reckless  than  age,  but  it  is  not 
nearly  so  rash.  It  keeps  thinking  its  long,  long  thoughts 
and  questioning  the  conclusions  to  which  age  eagerly 
hobbles  or  hurls  itself  from  its  crutches.  Youth  is  de 
liberate,  for  it  has  plenty  of  time,  while,  as  our  friend 
notes,  age  has  little  but  eternity  before  it.  Not  youth, 
but  age,  leaps  from  life's  trolley  while  it  is  still  in  mo 
tion,  or,  after  mismeasuring  the  time  and  space,  limps 
impatiently  before  it  and  is  rolled  under  its  fender. 
You  may  see  physical  proof  of  this  difference,  our  friend 
insists,  in  the  behavior  of  two  people,  one  young  and 
one  old,  at  any  street-crossing ;  and  why  should  so  many 
old  ladies  fall  on  the  stairs,  but  that  they  are  apt 
to  precipitate  themselves  wildly  from  landings  where 
young  girls  linger  to  dream  yet  one  dream  more  be 
fore  they  glide  slowly  down  to  greet  the  young  men 
who  would  willingly  wait  years  for  them  ? 

312 


THE    FICKLENESS    OF    AGE 

The  distrust  of  eternity  at  which  our  friend  hints 
is  perhaps  the  painfulest  of  his  newly  discovered  dif 
ferences  between  youth  and  age.     Resting  so  serenely 
as  it  does  in  practically  unlimited  time,  with  ideals 
and  desires  which  scarcely  vary  from  year  to  year, 
youth  has  no  fears  of  infinity.     It  is  not  afraid  but  it 
shall  have  abundant  occupation  in  the  aeons  before  it, 
or  that  its  emotions  or  volitions  shall  first  be  exhausted. 
Its  blithe  notion  of  immortality  is  that  it  is  immortal 
youth.    It  has  no  conception  of  age,  and  could  not  im 
agine  an  eternity  of  accomplished  facts.    It  is,  perhaps, 
for  this  reason  that  doubt  of  immortality  never  really 
comes  to  youth.     One  of  the  few  things  which  our 
friend  still  believes   is  that  every  sceptic  who   deals 
honestly  with  his  only  history  must  be  aware  of  an  hour, 
almost  a  moment,  of  waning  youth,  when  the  vague 
potentiality  of  disbelief  became  a  living  doubt,  thence 
forward  to  abide  with  him  till  death  resolve  it.     End 
less  not-being  is  unthinkable  before  that  time,  as  after 
it  endless  being  is  unthinkable.     Yet  this  unthinkable 
endless  being  is  all  that  is  left  to  age,  and  it  is  in  the 
notion  of  it  alone  that  age  can  get  back  to  the  long, 
long  thoughts  in  which  is  surcease  from  unrest.     Our 
old  friend  may  accuse  us  of  proposing  the  most  impos 
sible  of  paradoxes  when  we  invite  him  to  take  refuge 
from  his  whirling  ideals,  not  in  an  unavailing  endeavor 
to  renew  the  conditions  of  youth  in  time,  but  in  the 
forecast   of  youth   in   eternity.      We   think   that   the 
error  of  his  impatience,  his  despair  with  the  state  he 
has  come  to  here,   is  largely  if  not  wholly  through 
his  failure  to  realize  that  he  is  not  going  to  wake  up 
old  in  some  other  being,  but  young,  and  that  the  capacity 
of  long,  long  thoughts  will  be  renewed  in  him  with  the 
renewal  of  his  life.     The  restlessness  of  age,  its  fickle 
ness,  its  volatility,  is  the  expression  of  immense  fatigue. 

21  313 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

It  tosses  from  side  to  side  and  tries  for  this  and  that 
like  a  sick  man  from  sheer  weakness ;  or,  rather,  if  the 
reader  prefers  another  image,  it  is  like  some  hapless 
wild  thing  caught  by  rising  floods  on  a  height  of  land 
which  they  must  soon  submerge,  and  running  incessant 
ly  hither  and  thither  as  the  water  more  narrowly  hems 

it  in. 

Undoubtedly  the  mutability  of  age  in  its  ideals  has 
been  increased  of  late  by  the  restriction  of  human  hope 
to  the  years  which  remain,  few  and  brief  to  the  longest 
earthly  life,  by  the  sciences  which  provisionally  darken 
counsel.     When  these  shall  have  penetrated  to  a  point 
where  they  can  discern  the  light,  they  will  "  pour  the 
day  "  on  the  dim  orbs  of  age  and  illumine  the  future 
with  new  hope.     Then  doubting  age  can  enter  into  the 
rest  now  forbidden  it  and  take  its  repose  between  il 
limitable  horizons  in  the  long,  long  thoughts  of  eternal 
youth.     We  speak  here  in  behalf  of  the  sceptic,  the  ag 
nostic  few.     Tor  the  many  who  have  not  lost  their 
hope  because  they  have  never  lost  their  faith,  doubtless 
all  the  trouble  of" change  which  disquiets  our  friend  will 
seem  something  temperamental  merely,  and  not  some 
thing    essential    or    inseparable    from    human    nature. 
Their  thoughts  have  remained  long,  their  ideals  stead 
fast,  because  they  have  not  lost  the  most  precious  jewel 
of  their  youth— the  star  of  trust  and  hope  which 
"  Flames  in  the  forehead  of  the  morning  sky." 

These  are  the  most  enviable  of  their  kind,  and  there 
are  signs  that  their  turn  may  be  coming  once  more  in 
the  primacy  to  which  their  numbers  have  always  en 
titled  them.  Only  the  other  day  we  were  reading  a 
paper  by  a  man  of  that  science  which  deals  with  life  on 
strictly  physical  lines,  and  drawing  from  it  an  immense 
consolation  because  it  reaffirmed  that  the  soul  has  not 

314 


THE    FICKLENESS    OF    AGE 

only  its  old  excuse  for  being  in  the  unthinkability  of 
an  automatic  universe  and  the  necessity  of  an  inten 
tional  first  cause,  but  with  Evolution,  in  the  regard  of 
some  scientists,  tottering  on  its  throne,  and  Natural 
Selection  entering  the  twilight  into  which  the  elder 
pagan  deities  have  vanished,  is  newly  warranted  in 
claiming  existence  as  that  indestructible  life-property 
or  organizing  power  which  characterizes  kind  through 
kind  from  everlasting  to  everlasting.  In  this  consola 
tion  we  seemed  well  on  our  way  back  to  the  encounter 
of  a  human  spirit  such  as  used  to  be  rapt  to  heaven  or 
cast  into  hell  for  very  disproportionate  merits  or  de 
merits  ;  but  we  were  supported  for  the  meeting  by  the 
probability  that  in  the  fortunate  event  the  spirit  would 
be  found  issuing  from  all  the  clouds  of  superstition, 
and  when  it  was  reconstituted  in  the  universal  belief, 
that  the  time,  with  eternity  in  its  train,  would  have 
returned  for  fitly  hailing  it  in  the  apostrophe  of  the 
Addisonian  Cato: 

"But   thou    shalt   flourish    in    immortal  youth, 
Unhurt  amidst  the  war  of  elements, 
The  wreck  of  matter,  and  the  crush  of  worlds." 


VII 

THE  RENEWAL  OF  INSPIRATION 

THEKE  comes  a  time  in  the  experience  of  perhaps 
every  stated  purveyor  of  intellectual  food  when  the 
stock  he  has  long  been  drawing  upon  seems  finally  ex 
hausted.  There  is  not  a  grain  left  in  the  barns  where 
he  had  garnered  up  the  harvests  of  the  past;  there  is 
not  a  head  of  wheat  to  be  found  in  the  fields  where  he 
had  always  been  able  to  glean  something;  if  he  shakes 
the  tree  of  knowledge  in  the  hope  of  a  nut  to  crack 
or  a  frozen-thaw  to  munch,  nothing  comes  down  but 
a  shower  of  withered  leaves.  His  condition  is  what,  in 
the  parlance  of  his  vocation,  he  calls  being  out  of  a 
subject,  and  it  is  what  may  happen  to  him  equally 
whether  he  is  preaching  twice  a  Sunday  from  the  pul 
pit,  or  writing  leaders  every  day  for  a  prominent  jour 
nal,  or  merely  contributing  a  monthly  essay  to  a  maga 
zine.  As  the  day  or  hour  or  moment  approaches  when 
he  must  give  forth  something  from  his  destitution,  he 
envies  the  hungriest  of  his  auditors  or  readers  who  do 
not  yet  know  that  there  is  nothing  in  him  to  appease 
their  famine.  There  is  only  the  barren  will  to  give 
which  only  a  miracle  can  transform  into  a  vitalizing 
bounty. 

Yet  is  not  this  miracle  always  wrought  ?  When  did 
a  pulpit  ever  fail  of  a  sermon,  or  a  journal  of  a  lead 
ing  article,  or  a  magazine  of  its  stated  essay  ?  The  fact 

316 


THE    RENEWAL    OF    INSPIRATION 

might  argue  the  very  contrary  of  the  appearance  and 
convince  the  desperate  purveyor  that  what  he  mistook 
for  hopeless  need  was  choice  which  mocked  him  with  a 
myriad  alternatives.  From  cover  to  cover  the  Scripture 
is  full  of  texts;  every  day  brings  forth  its  increase  of 
incident;  the  moral  and  social  and  sesthetical  world  is 
open  on  every  side  to  polite  inquiry  and  teems  with 
inspiring  suggestion.  If  ever  the  preacher  or  editor 
or  essayist  fancies  he  has  exhausted  these  resources,  he 
may  well  pause  and  ask  whether  it  is  not  himself  that 
he  has  exhausted.  There  may  be  wanting  the  eye  to 
see  the  riches  which  lie  near  or  far,  rather  than  the 
riches  which  are  always  inviting  the  eye. 

A  curious  trait  of  the  psychology  of  this  matter  is 
that  it  is  oftener  the  young  eye  than  the  old  which  lacks 
the  visual  force.  When  Eugenic  was  beginning  author 
and  used  to  talk  with  other  adolescent  immortals  of  the 
joyful  and  sorrowful  mysteries  of  their  high  calling, 
the  dearth  of  subjects  was  the  cause  of  much  misgiving 
and  even  despair  among  them.  Upon  a  certain  occasion 
one  of  that  divine  company,  so  much  diviner  than  any 
of  the  sort  now,  made  bold  to  affirm :  "  I  feel  that  I 
have  got  my  technique  perfect.  I  believe  that  my  poetic 
art  will  stand  the  test  of  any  experiment  in  the  hand 
ling  of  verse,  and  now  all  that  I  want  is  a  subject."  It 
seemed  a  great  hardship  to  the  others,  and  they  felt 
it  the  more  keenly  because  every  one  of  them  was  more 
or  less  in  the  same  case.  They  might  have  none  of 
them  so  frankly  owned  their  fitness  for  their  work  as 
the  one  Avho  had  spoken,  but  they  were  all  as  deeply 
aware  of  it :  and  if  any  subject  had  appeared  above  the 
horizon  there  could  have  been  no  question  among  them 
except  as  to  which  should  first  mount  his  winged  steed 
and  ride  it  down.  It  did  not  occur  to  any  of  them 
that  the  want  of  a  subject  was  the  defect  of  their  art, 

317 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

and  that  until  they  were  equipped  with  the  eye  that 
never  fails  to  see  occasion  for  song  all  round  the  heavens 
they  were  not  yet  the  champions  of  poetry  which  they 
fancied  themselves.  He  who  had  uttered  their  common 
belief  sufficiently  proved  afterward,  in  the  range  of 
things  he  did,  that  he  had  ultimately  come  into  pos 
session  of  the  highest  of  the  poetic  gifts,  the  poetic 
vision  of  life,  and  that  he  had  completed  his  art  at  a 
point  where  it  had  been  most  imperfect  before,  when 
he  supposed  it  so  perfect.  As  soon  as  he  ceased  looking 
for  subjects,  which  were  mainly  the  conventional  themes 
of  verse,  the  real  and  vital  subjects  began  looking  for 
him. 

Eugenio  himself,  on  his  lower  level,  had  something 
of  the  same  experience.  When  he  first  began  those 
inventions  in  prose  which  long  seemed  to  him  worthy 
of  the  best  that  his  kindest  friends  said  of  them,  he 
had  great  trouble  in  contriving  facts  sufficiently  won 
derful  for  the  characters  who  were  to  deal  with  them, 
and  characters  high  and  noble  enough  to  deal  with  the 
great  and  exalted  facts.  On  one  hand  or  the  other  his 
scheme  was  always  giving  out.  The  mirage  of  fancy 
which  painted  itself  so  alluringly  before  him  faded  on 
his  advance  and  left  him  planted  heavy-footed  in  the 
desert  sands.  In  other  words,  he  was  always  getting 
out  of  a  subject.  In  the  intervals  between  his  last 
fiction  and  his  next,  when  his  friends  supposed  he  was 
purposely  letting  his  mind  lie  fallow  (and  perhaps  will 
ingly  acquiesced  in  the  rest  they  were  sharing  with 
him),  he  was  really  in  an  anguish  of  inquiry  for  some 
thing  on  which  to  employ  his  powers ;  he  was  in  a  state 
of  excruciating  activity  of  which  the  incessant  agitation 
of  the  atoms  in  the  physical  world  is  but  a  faint  image ; 
his  repose  was  the  mask  of  violent  vibrations,  of  vol 
canic  emotions,  which  required  months  to  clear  them- 

318 


THE    RENEWAL    OF    INSPIRATION 

selves  in  the  realization  of  some  ideal  altogether  dis- 
proportioned  to  the  expenditure  of  energy  which  had 
been  tacitly  taking  place.  At  these  periods  it  seemed 
to  him  that  his  lot  had  been  cast  in  a  world  where  he 
was  himself  about  the  only  interesting  fact,  and  from 
which  every  attractive  subject  had  been  removed  before 
he  came  into  it. 

He  could  never  tell  just  how  or  when  all  this  changed, 
and  a  little  ray,  very  faint  and  thin  at  first,  stole  in 
upon  his  darkness  and  broadened  to  an  effulgence  which 
showed  his  narrow  circle  a  boundless  universe  thronged 
with  the  most  available  passions,  interests,  motives, 
situations,  catastrophes  and  denouements,  and  charac 
ters  eagerly  fitting  themselves  with  the  most  appropriate 
circumstances.  As  nearly  as  he  could  make  out,  his 
liberation  to  this  delightful  cosmos  took  place  through 
his  gradual  perception  that  human  nature  was  of  a 
vast  equality  in  the  important  things,  and  had  its  dif 
ference  only  in  trifles.  He  had  but  to  take  other  men 
in  the  same  liberal  spirit  that  he  took  himself  to  find 
them  all  heroes ;  he  had  but  to  take  women  at  their  own 
estimate  to  find  them  all  heroines,  if  not  divinely  beau 
tiful,  then  interesting,  fascinating,  irresistibly  better 
than  beautiful.  The  situation  was  something  like  this; 
it  will  not  do  to  give  away  his  whole  secret ;  but  the  read 
er  needs  only  a  hint  in  order  to  understand  how  in  his 
new  mind  Eugenio  was  overwhelmed  with  subjects. 

After  this  illumination  of  his  the  only  anxiety  he 
had  was  concerning  his  ability  to  produce  all  the  master 
pieces  he  felt  himself  capable  of  in  the  short  time  al 
lotted  to  the  longest-lived  writer.  He  was  aware  of  a 
duty  to  the  material  he  had  discovered,  and  this  indeed 
sometimes  weighed  upon  him.  However,  he  took  cour 
age  from  the  hope  that  others  would  seize  his  point  of 
view  and  be  able  to  carry  on  the  work  of  producing 

319 


IMAGINARY     INTERVIEWS 

masterpieces  indefinitely.  They  could  never  use  up  all 
the  subjects,  any  more  than  men  can  exhaust  the  ele 
ments  of  the  aluminium  which  abound  in  every  piece 
of  the  common  earth;  but,  in  their  constant  reliance 
upon  every-day  life  as  the  true  and  only  source  of  sur 
prise  and  delight  in  art,  they  could  never  be  in  the 
terrible  despair  which  had  afflicted  him  from  time  to 
time  before  his  illumination. 

Doubtless  there  is  an  overruling  Providence  in  this 
matter  which  we  may  not  distrust  without  accusing  the 
order  which  has  not  yet  failed  in  the  due  succession  of 
the  seasons  and  the  days  and  nights.  While  we  are 
saying  it  is  never  going  to  rain,  it  rains;  or  when  it 
seems  as  if  nature  were  finally  frozen  up,  a  thaw  be 
gins;  when  we  feel  that  the  dark  will  not  end,  the 
dawn  is  already  streaking  the  east.  If  the  preacher 
thinks  that  the  old  texts  are  no  longer  applicable  to 
life,  there  is  suddenly  reported  an  outbreak  of  vice  in 
the  city  which  puts  him  in  mind  of  Sodom  and  Gomor 
rah;  or  the  opportune  flight  of  a  defaulter  furnishes 
material  for  a  homily  which  searches  the  consciences 
of  half  the  congregation  with  the  words  of  the  com 
mandment  against  stealing.  The  journalist  wakes  in 
heavy-eyed  despair,  but  he  finds  from  the  papers  on  his 
breakfast-table  that  there  has  been  a  revolution  in  South 
America,  or  that  the  Socialists  have  been  doing  some 
thing  in  Belgium  almost  too  bad  even  for  Socialists 
as  the  capitalists  imagine  them,  and  his  heart  rises 
again.  Even  the  poor  magazine  essayist,  who  has  lived 
through  the  long  month  in  dread  of  the  hour  when  his 
copy  shall  be  due,  is  not  forbidden  his  reprieve.  Ho 
may  not  have  anything  to  say,  but  he  certainly  has 
something  to  say  it  about.  The  world  is  always  as  inter 
esting  to-day  as  it  was  yesterday,  and  probably  to 
morrow  will  not  be  so  dull  as  it  promises. 

320 


THE    RENEWAL    OF    INSPIRATION 

One  reason  for  the  disability  of  the  essayist,  as  dis 
tinguished  from  the  preacher  or  the  journalist,  is  that 
he  does  not  give  himself  range  enough.  Expecting  to 
keep  scrupulously  to  one  subject,  he  cannot  put  his 
hand  on  a  theme  which  he  is  sure  will  hold  out  under 
him  to  the  end.  Once  it  was  not  so.  The  essayists  of 
antiquity  were  the  most  vagariously  garrulous  people 
imaginable.  There  was  not  one  of  them  who,  to  our 
small  acquaintance  with  them,  kept  to  his  proposition 
or  ended  anywhere  in  sight  of  it.  Aristotle,  Epictetus, 
Marcus  Aurelius,  Plutarch,  they  talk  of  anything  but 
the  matter  in  hand,  after  mentioning  it ;  and  when 
you  come  down  to  the  moderns,  for  instance,  to  such 
a  modern  as  Montaigne,  you  find  him  wandering  all 
over  the  place.  He  has  no  sooner  stated  his  subject 
than  he  begins  to  talk  about  something  else ;  it  reminds 
him  (like  Lincoln)  of  a  story  which  has  nothing  to  do 
with  it ;  and  that  story  reminds  him  of  another,  and  so 
on,  till  the  original  thesis  is  left  flapping  in  the  breeze 
somewhere  at  the  vanishing-point  in  the  tortuous  per 
spective  and  vainly  signalling  the  essayist  back.  It 
was  the  same,  or  nearly  the  same,  with  the  English 
essayists  quite  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  last  century, 
when  they  began  to  cease  being.  The  writers  in  the 
Spectator,  the  Guardian,  the  Tailer,  the  Rambler,  and 
the  rest,  contrived  to  keep  a  loose  allegiance  to  the 
stated  topic,  because  they  treated  it  so  very  briefly,  and 
were  explicitly  off  to  something  else  in  the  next  page 
or  two  with  a  fresh  text.  But  if  we  come  to  such  de 
lightful  masters  of  the  art  as  Lamb  and  Leigh  Hunt 
and  De  Quincey  and  Hazlitt,  it  will  not  be  easy,  open 
ing  at  any  chance  point,  to  make  out  what  they  are 
talking  about.  They  are  apparently  talking  about 
everything  else  in  the  world  but  the  business  they 
started  with.  But  they  are  always  talking  delight- 

321 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

fully,  and  that  is  the  great  matter  with  any  sort  of 
talker. 

When  the  reviewers  began  to  supplant  the  essayists, 
they  were  even  more  contemptuously  indifferent  to  the 
obligations  of  constancy.  Their  text  was  nominally 
some  book,  but  almost  as  soon  as  they  had  named  it 
they  shut  it  and  went  off  on  the  subject  of  it,  perhaps, 
or  perhaps  not.  It  was  for  the  most  part  lucky  for  the 
author  that  they  did  so,  for  their  main  affair  with  the 
author  was  to  cuff  him  soundly  for  his  ignorance  and 
impudence,  and  then  leave  him  and  not  return  to  him 
except  for  a  few  supplementary  cuffs  at  the  close,  just 
to  show  that  they  had  not  forgotten  him.  Macaulay 
was  a  notorious  offender  in  this  sort ;  though  why  do  we 
say  offender  ?  Was  not  he  always  delightful  ?  He  was 
and  he  is,  though  we  no  longer  think  him  a  fine  critic ; 
and  he  meant  to  be  just,  or  as  just  as  any  one  could  be 
with  a  man  whom  one  differed  from  in  the  early  Vic 
torian  period. 

But  Macaulay  certainly  did  not  keep  harking  back 
to  his  text,  if  ever  he  returned  to  it  at  all.  His  instinct 
was  that  a  preacher's  concern  was  with  his  text,  but  not 
an  essayist's  or  a  reviewer's,  and  he  was  right  enough. 
The  essayist  certainly  has  no  such  obligation  or  neces 
sity.  His  reader  can  leave  him  at  any  moment,  unless 
lie  is  very  interesting,  and  it  does  not  matter  where  they 
part  company.  In  fact,  it  might  be  argued  that  the 
modern  fidelity  to  its  subject  is  one  of  the  chief  evi 
dences  or  causes  of  the  essay's  decay.  The  essayist  tries 
to  make  a  mechanical  conscience  perform  the  duty  of 
that  fine  spiritual  freedom  in  which  the  essay  once  had 
its  highest  effect  with  the  reader,  and  in  his  dull  loyalty 
to  the  stated  thesis  he  is  superficial  as  well  as  tiresome. 

The  true  subject  is  not  one  subject  only,  but  many. 
It  is  like  that  pungent  bulb  whose  odorous  energy  in- 

322 


THE    RENEWAL    OF    INSPIRATION 

creases  with  exfoliation,  and  remains  a  potent  fragrance 
in  the  air  after  the  bulb  has  substantially  ceased  to  be 
under  the  fingers.  The  error  of  the  modern  essayist  is 
to  suppose  that  he  can  ever  have  a  single  subject  in 
hand ;  he  has  a  score,  he  has  a  hundred,  as  his  elders 
and  betters  all  know ;  and  what  he  mistakes  for  his  desti 
tution  is  really  his  superfluity.  If  he  will  be  honest  (as 
he  may  with  difficulty  be),  must  not  he  recognize  that 
what  seems  a  search  for  one  theme  is  a  hesitation  be 
tween  many  pressing  forward  for  his  choice?  If  he 
will  make  this  admission  we  believe  he  will  be  nearer 
the  fact,  and  lie  will  be  a  much  more  respectable  figure 
than  he  could  feel  himself  in  blindly  fumbling  about 
for  a  single  thesis.  Life  is  never,  and  in  nothing,  the 
famine,  perhaps,  that  we  imagine  it.  Much  more  prob 
ably  it  is  a  surfeit,  and  what  we  suppose  are  the  pangs 
of  hunger  are  really  the  miseries  of  repletion.  More 
people  are  suffering  from  too  much  than  from  too  lit 
tle.  Especially  are  the  good  things  here  in  a  demoraliz 
ing  profusion.  Ask  any  large  employer  of  labor,  and  he 
will  tell  you  that  what  ails  the  working-classes  is  an 
excess  of  pianos  and  buggies  and  opera-boxes.  Ask  any 
workman  what  ails  his  employer,  and  he  will  say  that 
it  is  the  ownership  of  the  earth,  with  a  mortgage  on 
planetary  space.  Both  are  probably  right,  or  at  least 
one  is  as  right  as  the  other. 

When  we  have  with  difficulty  made  our  selection  from 
the  divine  redundancy  of  the  ideal  world,  and  so  far 
as  we  could  have  reduced  ourselves  to  the  penury  of  a 
sole  possession,  why  do  not  we  turn  our  eyes  to  the  ex 
ample  of  Nature  in  not  only  bringing  forth  a  hundred 
or  a  thousand  fold  of  the  kind  of  seed  planted,  but  in 
accompanying  its  growth  with  that  of  an  endless  variety 
of  other  plants,  all  coming  to  bear  in  a  like  profusion  ? 
Observe  that  wise  husbandwoman  (this  is  not  the  con- 

323 


IMAGINARY    INTEEVIEWS 

tradiction  in  terms  it  seems),  how  when  her  business  is 
apparently  a  hay  harvest,  she  mingles  myriads  of  daisies 
and  milkweed  and  wild  carrot  and  redtop  with  the  grass, 
and  lets  her  fancy  riot  all  round  the  meadow  in  a 
broidery  of  blackberries  and  asters  and  dogroses  and 
goldenrod.  She  never  works  without  playing;  and  she 
plays  even  while  man  is  working — plays  so  graciously 
and  winningly  that  it  takes  the  heart  with  joy.  Who 
has  ever  looked  upon  an  old-world  wheat-field,  where 
poppies  and  vetches  are  frolicking  among  the  ears,  and 
begrudged  Nature  her  pastime  ?  No  one,  we  will  vent 
ure,  but  the  owner  of  the  field,  who  is  perhaps  also  too 
much  of  a  philosopher  to  grieve  over  it.  In  the  ideal 
world  it  is  much  the  same.  There,  too,  art  having 
chosen  a  kind  brings  it  to  bear  with  all  the  other  kinds 
which  have  been  lurking  in  the  unconscious  soil  of  the 
mind  and  only  waiting  tilth  for  any  purpose  before 
springing  up  in  company  with  the  selected  seed.  This 
is  what  makes  the  poets  and  novelists  and  dramatists  so 
much  more  profitable  reading  than  the  moralists.  From 
whom,  indeed,  has  the  vital  wisdom  of  the  race  been 
garnered?  'Not  from  those  hard,  ethical  masters  who 
have  sought  to  narrow  culture  to  the  business  of  grow 
ing  precepts,  but  from  the  genial  teachers  who  have  in 
culcated  amusement  and  breathed  into  the  unwary  mind 
some  inspiration  which  escaped  as  unconsciously  from 
themselves.  Which  philosopher  or  sage  of  them  all  has 
instructed  mankind  a  hundredth  part  as  much  as  Shake 
speare,  who  supposed  himself  to  be  merely  providing 
diversion  for  the  patrons  of  the  Globe  Theatre? 

It  follows,  if  not  directly,  then  a  long  way  about, 
from  what  we  have  been  saying,  that  the  real  artist  is 
never  at  a  loss  for  a  subject.  His  trouble  is  too  many 
themes,  not  too  few;  and,  having  chosen  among  them, 
his  error  will  be  in  an  iron  sequence  rather  than  in  a 

324 


THE    RENEWAL    OF    INSPIRATION 

desultory  progression.  lie  is  to  arrive,  if  at  all,  laden 
with  the  spoil  of  the  wayside,  and  bringing  with  him 
the  odor  of  the  wild  flowers  carpeting  or  roofing  the  by 
paths  ;  if  he  is  a  little  bothered  by  the  flowering  brambles 
which  have  affectionately  caught  at  him  in  his  course, 
that  does  not  greatly  matter;  or,  at  least,  it  is  better 
than  coming  back  to  his  starting-point  in  boots  covered 
with  the  mud  of  the  high-road  or  coat  powdered  with 
its  dust  The  sauntering  ease,  the  excursive  delays, 
will  be  natural  to  the  poet  or  the  novelist,  who  is  born 
to  them ;  but  the  essayist  must  in  a  manner  make  them 
his  own,  if  he  would  be  an  artist  and  survive  among 
the  masters,  which  there  has  been  some  doubt  of  his 
doing.  It  should  be  his  care  to  shun  every  appearance 
of  continuity;  only  in  the  practice  of  the  fitful,  the 
capricious,  the  desultory,  can  he  hope  to  emulate  the 
effects  of  the  creative.  With  any  other  ideal  he  cannot 
hope  to  be  fit  company  for  the  high  minds  who  have 
furnished  mankind  with  quotations.  But  for  the  preva 
lence  of  the  qualities  which  we  have  been  urging  the 
essayist  to  cultivate,  in  the  essays  of  Bacon,  it  is  not 
probable  that  any  one  would  ever  have  fancied  that 
Bacon  wrote  Shakespeare. 


VIII 

THE  SUMMER  SOJOURN  OF  FLORINDO  AND  LINDORA 

AT  the  moment  of  this  writing,  everybody  is  hurry 
ing  into  the  country,  eager  to  escape  the  horrors  of  sum 
mer  in  the  city;  at  the  moment  when  it  becomes  that 
reading  we  hope  for,  everybody  will  be  hurrying  into 
the  city,  eager  to  escape  the  horrors  of  summer  in  the 
country.  At  either  moment  the  experiences  of  Florindo 
and  Lindora  should  have  a  certain  interest. 

Florindo  and  Lindora  are  a  married  pair,  still  com 
paratively  happy  after  forty  years  of  wedded  life,  who 
have  spent  the  part  or  the  whole  of  each  hot  season  out 
of  town,  sometimes  in  the  hills,  sometimes  by  the  sea, 
sometimes  in  Europe.  Their  acquaintance  with  either 
form  of  sojourn,  if  not  exhaustive,  is  so  comprehensive 
that  it  might  be  cited  as  encyclopaedic. 

The  first  season  or  so  they  did  not  think  of  shutting 
up  their  house  in  the  city,  or  doing  more  than  taking, 
the  latter  part  of  August,  a  trip  to  Niagara  or  Saratoga 
or  Cape  May  or  Lake  George,  or  some  of  those  simple, 
old-fashioned  resorts  whose  mere  mention  brings  a  sense 
of  pre-existence,  with  a  thrill  of  fond  regret,  to  the  age 
which  can  no  longer  be  described  as  middle  and  is  per 
haps  flattered  by  the  epithet  of  three-quartering.  No 
doubt  people  go  to  those  places  yet,  but  Florindo  and 
Lindora  have  not  been  to  any  of  them  for  so  many 
summers  that  they  can  hardly  realize  them  as  still  open : 

326 


THE     SUMMER    SOJOURN 

for  them  they  were  closed  in  the  earliest  of  the  eighteen- 
seventies. 

After  that,  say  the  third  summer  of  their  marriage,  it 
appeared  to  Lindora  essential  to  take  board  somewhere 
for  the  whole  summer,  at  such  an  easy  distance  that 
Florindo  could  run  up  or  down  or  out  every  Satur 
day  afternoon  and  stay  Sunday  with  her  and  the  chil 
dren  ;  for  there  had  now  begun  to  be  children,  who 
could  not  teethe  in  town,  and  for  whom  the  abun 
dance  of  pure  milk,  small  fruits,  and  fresh  vegetables 
promised  with  the  shade  and  safety  of  the  farm  was 
really  requisite.  She  kept  the  house  in  town  still  open, 
as  before,  or  rather  half-open,  for  she  left  only  the 
cook  in  it  to  care  for  her  husband,  and  do  the  family 
wash,  sent  to  and  fro  by  express,  while  she  took  the 
second  girl  with  her  as  maid.  In  the  first  days  of  Sep 
tember,  when  the  most  enterprising  of  the  fresh  vege 
tables  were  beginning  to  appear  on  the  table,  and  the 
mosquitoes  were  going,  and  the  smell  of  old  potatoes 
in  the  cellar  and  rats  in  the  walls  was  airing  out,  and 
she  was  getting  used  to  the  peculiar  undulations  of  her 
bed,  she  took  the  little  tecthers  back  to  town  with  her; 
and  when  she  found  her  husband  in  the  comfortable 
dimensions  of  their  own  house,  with  melons  and  berrir.3 
and  tender  steak,  and  rich  cream  (such  as  never  comes 
on  "  pure  milk  "),  and  hot  and  cold  baths,  and  no  flies, 
she  could  not  help  feeling  that  he  had  been  very  selfish. 
Now  she  understood,  at  least,  why  he  never  failed  on 
Monday  morning  to  wake  in  time  for  the  stage  to  carry 
him  to  the  station,  and  she  said,  No  more  farm-board 
for  her  if  she  knew  it. 

In  those  idyllic  days,  while  they  were  making  their 
way,  and  counting  the  cost  of  every  step  as  if  it  were 
the  proverbial  first  step,  the  next  step  for  Lindora  was 
a  large  boarding-house  for  the  summer.  She  tried  it 

327 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

first  in  the  country,  and  she  tried  it  next  at  the  seaside, 
with  the  same  number  of  feet  of  piazza  in  both  cases, 
and  with  no  distinct  difference  except  in  the  price.  It 
was  always  dearer  at  the  seaside,  but  if  it  had  been 
better  she  should  not  have  thought  it  so  dear.  Yet,  as 
it  was  dearer,  she  could  not  help  thinking  it  was  better ; 
and  there  was  the  beach  for  the  teethers  to  dig  in,  and 
there  was  an  effect  of  superior  fashion  in  the  gossipers 
on  the  piazza,  one  to  every  three  of  the  three  hundred 
feet  of  the  piazza,  rocking  and  talking,  and  guessing 
at  the  yachts  in  the  offing,  and  then  bathing  and  com 
ing  out  to  lie  on  the  sand  and  dry  their  hair. 

At  the  farm  she  had  paid  seven  dollars  a  week  for 
herself,  and  half-price  for  the  children ;  at  the  country 
boarding-house  she  had  paid  ten  for  herself,  and  again 
half-price  for  the  children ;  at  the  seaside  boarding- 
house  the  rate  for  her  was  fourteen  dollars,  and  nine 
for  the  children  and  the  maid.  Everybody  on  the 
piazza  said  it  was  very  cheap,  but  to  Lindora  it  was 
so  dear  that  she  decided  for  Florindo  that  they  could 
not  go  on  keeping  the  house  open  and  the  cook  in  it 
just  for  him,  as  the  expressage  on  the  wash  took  away 
all  the  saving  in  that.  If  she  allowed  him  to  sleep  in 
the  house,  he  could  pick  up  his  meals  for  much  less 
than  they  now  cost.  They  must  not  burn  their  candle  at 
both  ends ;  he  must  put  out  his  end.  There  was  reason 
in  this,  because  now  Florindo  was  sometimes  kept  so 
late  at  business  that  he  could  not  get  the  last  train 
Saturday  night  for  the  beach,  and  he  missed  the  Sun 
day  with  his  family  on  which  she  counted  so  much. 
Thinking  these  things  over  during  the  ensuing  winter, 
she  began  to  divine,  toward  spring,  that  the  only  thing 
for  the  teethers,  and  the  true  way  for  Florindo,  was  for 
her  to  get  away  from  the  city  to  a  good  distance,  where 

there  would  be  a  real  change  of  air,  and  that  a  moderate 

328 


THE    SUMMEK    SOJOUKN 

hotel  in  the  White  Mountains  or  the  Adirondacks  was 
the  only  hopeful  guess  at  their  problem.  If  Florindo 
could  not  come  for  Sunday  when  they  were  off  only  an 
hour  or  two,  it  would  be  no  worse  for  them  to  be  seven 
or  eight  hours  off.  Florindo  agreed  the  more  easily 
because  he  had  now  joined  a  club,  where  he  got  his 
meals  as  comfortably  as  at  home  and  quite  as  economi 
cally,  counting  in  the  cook.  He  could  get  a  room  also 
at  the  club,  and  if  they  shut  the  house  altogether,  and 
had  it  wired  by  the  burglar-insurance  company,  they 
would  be  cutting  off  a  frightful  drain. 

It  was,  therefore,  in  the  interest  of  clearly  ascertained 
economy  that  Lindora  took  her  brood  with  her  to  a 
White  Mountain  hotel,  where  she  made  a  merit  of  get 
ting  board  for  seventeen  dollars  and  a  half  a  week, 
when  so  many  were  paying  twenty  and  twenty-five. 
Florindo  came  up  twice  during  the  summer,  and  stayed 
a  fortnight  each  time,  and  fished,  and  said  that  it  had 
been  a  complete  rest.  On  the  way  back  to  town  Lindora 
stopped  for  October  in  one  of  those  nice  spring-and- 
fall  places  where  you  put  in  the  half-season  which  is 
so  unwholesome  in  the  city  after  a  long  summer  in  the 
country,  and  afterward  she  always  did  this.  Fort 
unately,  Florindo  was  prospering,  and  he  could  afford 
the  increased  cost  of  this  method  of  saving.  The  sys 
tem  was  practised  with  great  success  for  four  or  five 
years,  and  then,  suddenly,  it  failed. 

Lindora  was  tired  of  always  going  to  the  same  place, 
sick  and  tired;  and,  as  far  as  she  could  see,  all  those 
mountain-places  were  the  same  places.  She  could  get 
no  good  of  the  air  if  she  bored  herself ;  the  nice  people 
did  not  go  to  hotels  so  much  now,  anyway,  and  the 
children  were  dreadful,  no  fit  associates  for  the  teethers, 
who  had  long  ceased  to  teethe  but  needed  a  summer 

outing  as  much  as  ever.     A  series  of  seasons  followed 
22  329 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

when  the  married  pair  did  not  know  where  to  go,  in 
the  person  of  the  partner  who  represented  them,  and 
they  had  each  spring  a  controversy  vividly  resembling 
a  quarrel,  but  which  was  really  not  a  quarrel,  because 
the  Dear  knew  that  if  it  were  not  for  the  children 
Lindora  would  only  be  too  glad  never  to  leave  their 
own  house  winter  or  summer,  but  just  to  stick  there, 
year  out  and  year  in.  Then,  at  least,  she  could  look 
a  little  after  Elorindo,  who  had  lived  so  much  at  the 
club  that  he  had  fairly  forgotten  he  had  a  wife  and 
children.  The  trouble  was  all  with  Florindo,  anyway ; 
he  cared  more  for  his  business  than  his  family,  much; 
if  he  did  not,  he  could  have  managed  somehow  to  spend 
the  summers  with  them.  Other  men  did  it,  and  ran 
down  once  a  month,  or  once  a  fortnight,  to  put  things 
in  shape,  and  then  came  back. 

Sleeping  on  a  midnight  view  of  her  hard  case,  Lin 
dora  woke  one  morning  with  an  inspiration;  it  might 
not  be  too  much  to  call  it  a  revelation.  She  wondered 
at  herself,  she  was  ashamed  of  herself,  for  not  having 
thought  of  it  before.  Europe,  of  course,  was  the  only 
solution.  Once  in  Europe,  you  need  not  worry  about 
where  to  go,  for  you  could  go  anywhere.  Europe  was 
everywhere,  and  you  had  your  choice  of  the  Swiss 
mountains,  where  every  breath  made  another  person  of 
you,  or  the  Italian  lakes  with  their  glorious  scenery,  or 
the  English  lakes  with  their  literary  associations,  or 
Scheveningen  and  all  Holland,  or  Etretat,  or  Ostend, 
or  any  of  those  thousands  of  German  baths  where  you 
could  get  over  whatever  you  had,  and  the  children  could 
pick  up  languages  with  tutors,  and  the  life  was  so  amus 
ing.  Going  to  Europe  was  excuse  enough  in  itself  for 
Elorindo  to  leave  his  business,  and,  if  he  could  not  be 
gone  more  than  one  summer,  he  could  place  her  and  the 
children  out  there  till  their  health  and  education  were 

330 


THE    SUMMER    SOJOURN 

completed,  and  they  could  all  return  home  when  it  was 
time  for  the  girls  to  think  of  coming  out  and  the  boys 
of  going  to  college. 

Florindo,  as  she  expected,  had  not  a  reasonable  word 
to  say  against  a  scheme  that  must  commend  itself  to 
any  reasonable  man.  In  fact,  he  scarcely  opposed  it. 
He  said  he  had  begun  to  feel  a  little  run  down,  and  he 
had  just  been  going  to  propose  Europe  himself  as  the 
true  solution.  She  gladly  gave  him  credit  for  the  idea, 
and  said  he  had  the  most  inventive  rnind  she  ever  heard 
of.  She  agreed  without  a  murmur  to  the  particular 
German  baths  which  the  doctor  said  would  be  best  for 
him,  because  she  just  knew  that  the  waters  would  be 
good  for  all  of  them ;  and  when  he  had  taken  his  cure 
the  family  made  his  after-cure  with  him,  and  they  had 
the  greatest  fun,  after  the  after-cure,  in  travelling  about 
Germany.  They  got  as  far  down  as  the  Italian  lakes 
in  the  early  autumn,  and  by  the  time  Florindo  had  to 
go  back  the  rest  were  comfortably  settled  in  Paris  for 
the  winter. 

As  a  solution  Europe  was  perfect,  but  it  was  not  per 
petual.  After  three  years  the  bottom  seemed  to  fall 
out,  as  Florindo  phrased  it,  and  the  family  came  home 
to  face  the  old  fearful  problem  of  where  to  spend  the 
summer.  Lindora  knew  where  not  to  spend  it,  but  her 
wisdom  ended  there,  and  when  a  friend  who  was  going 
to  Europe  offered  them  her  furnished  cottage  at  a  mere 
ly  nominal  rent,  Lindora  took  it  because  she  could  not 
think  of  anything  else.  They  all  found  it  so  charming 
that  after  that  summer  she  never  would  think  again 
of  hotels  or  any  manner  of  boarding.  They  hired  cot 
tages,  at  rents  not  so  nominal  as  at  first,  but  not  so 
very  extravagant  if  you  had  not  to  keep  the  city  rent 
going,  too ;  and  it  finally  seemed  best  to  buy  a  cottage, 
and  stop  the  leak  of  the  rent,  however  small  it  was 

331 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

Lindora  did  not  count  the  interest  on  the  purchase- 
money,  or  the  taxes,  or  the  repairs,  or  the  winter  care- 
taking. 

She  was  now  living,  and  is  still  living,  as  most  of  her 
contemporaries  and  social  equals  are  living,  not  quite 
free  of  care,  but  free  of  tiresome  associations,  cramped 
rooms,  bad  beds,  and  bad  food,  with  an  environment 
which  you  can  perfectly  control  if  you  are  willing  to 
pay  the  price.  The  situation  is  ideal  to  those  without, 
and,  if  not  ideal  to  those  within,  it  is  nevertheless  the 
best  way  of  spending  the  hot  season  known  to  com 
petitive  civilization.  What  is  most  interesting  to  the 
student  of  that  civilization  is  the  surprisingly  short 
time  in  which  it  has  been  evolved.  Half  a  century  ago 
it  was  known  only  to  some  of  the  richest  people.  A  few 
very  old  and  opulent  families  in  New  York  had  coun 
try-places  on  the  Hudson;  in  Boston  the  same  class 
had  summer  houses  at  Nahant  or  in  Pepperell.  The 
wealthy  planters  of  the  South  came  North  to  the  hotels 
of  Saratoga,  Lake  George,  and  Niagara,  whither  the 
vast  majority  of  the  fashionable  Northern  people  also 
resorted.  In  the  West  it  was  the  custom  to  leave  home 
for  a  summer  trip  up  the  lakes  or  down  the  St.  Law 
rence.  But  this  was  the  custom  only  for  the  very 
sophisticated,  and  even  now  in  the  West  people  do  not 
summer  outside  of  their  winter  homes  to  at  all  the  same 
extent  as  in  the  East. 

The  experience  of  Florindo  and  Lindora  is  easily 
parallelable  in  that  of  innumerable  other  married  pairs 
cf  American  race,  who  were  the  primitive  joke  of  the 
paragrapher  and  the  caricaturist  when  the  day  of  farm- 
boarding  began.  Though  the  sun  of  that  day  has  long 
set  for  Florindo  and  Lindora,  it  seems  to  be  still  at  the 
zenith  for  most  young  couples  beginning  life  on  their 
forgotten  terms,  and  tlie  joke  holds  in  its  pristine  fresh- 

'  332 


THE    SUMMER    SOJOURN 

ness  with  the  lowlier  satirists,  who  hunt  the  city  boarder 
in  the  country  and  the  seaside  hoarding-houses.  The 
Florindos  and  the  Lindoras  of  a  little  greater  age  and 
better  fortune  abound  in  the  summer  hotels  at  the 
beaches  and  in  the  mountains,  though  at  the  more 
worldly  watering-places  the  cottagers  have  killed  off  the 
hotels,  as  the  graphic  parlance  has  it.  The  hotels  no 
where,  perhaps,  flourish  in  their  old  vigor ;  except  for  a 
brief  six  weeks,  when  they  are  fairly  full,  they  languish 
along  the  rivers,  among  the  hills,  and  even  by  the  shores 
of  the  mournful  and  misty  Atlantic. 

The  summer  cottage,  in  fine,  is  what  Florindo  and 
Lindora  have  typically  come  to  in  so  many  cases  that 
it  may  be  regarded  as  the  typical  experience  of  the 
easily  circumstanced  American  of  the  East,  if  not  of  the 
West.  The  slightest  relaxation  of  the  pressure  of  nar 
row  domestic  things  seems  to  indicate  it,  and  the  reader 
would  probably  be  astonished  to  find  what  great  num 
bers  of  people,  who  are  comparatively  poor,  have  sum 
mer  cottages,  though  the  cottage  in  most  cases  is  per 
haps  as  much  below  the  dignity  of  a  real  cottage  as  the 
sumptuous  villas  of  Newport  are  above  it.  Summer 
cottages  with  the  great  average  of  those  who  have  them 
began  in  the  slightest  and  simplest  of  shanties,  pro 
gressing  toward  those  simulacra  of  houses  aptly  called 
shells,  and  gradually  arriving  at  picturesque  structures, 
prettily  decorated,  with  all  the  modern  conveniences,  in 
which  one  may  spend  two-thirds  of  the  year  and  more 
of  one's  income  than  one  has  a  quiet  conscience  in. 

It  would  not  be  so  bad,  if  one  could  live  in  them 
simply,  as  Lindora  proposed  doing  when  she  made 
Florindo  buy  hers  for  her,  but  the  graces  of  life 
cannot  be  had  for  nothing,  or  anything  like  noth 
ing,  and  when  you  have  a  charming  cottage,  and 

are  living  on  city  terms  in  it,  you  have  the  wish  to 

333 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

have  people  see  you  doing  it.  This  ambition  leads  to 
endless  and  rather  aimless  hospitality,  so  that  some 
Lindoras  have  been  known,  after  keeping  a  private  hotel 
in  their  cottages  for  a  series  of  summers,  to  shut  them 
or  let  them,  and  go  abroad  for  a  much-needed  rest, 
leaving  their  Morindos  to  their  clubs  as  in  the  days 
of  their  youth,  or  even  allowing  them  to  live  in  their 
own  houses  with  their  cooks. 

Nothing  in  this  world,  it  seems,  is  quite  what  we 
want  it  to  be;  we  ourselves  are  not  all  that  we  could 
wish;  and,  whatever  shape  our  summering  takes,  the 
crumpled  rose-leaf  is  there  to  disturb  our  repose.  The 
only  people  who  have  no  crumpled  rose-leaves  under 
them  are  those  who  have  no  repose,  but  stay  striving 
on  amid  the  heat  of  the  city  while  the  prey  of  the 
crumpled  rose-leaf  is  suffering  among  the  hills  or  by 
the  sea.  Those  home  -  keeping  Sybarites,  composing 
seven-eighths  of  our  urban  populations,  immune  from 
the  anguish  of  the  rose-leaf,  form  themselves  the  pang 
of  its  victims  in  certain  extreme  cases;  the  thought  of 
them  poisons  the  pure  air,  and  hums  about  the  sleep 
less  rest-seeker  in  the  resorts  where  there  are  no  mos 
quitoes.  There  are  Florindos,  there  are  Lindoras,  so 
sensitively  conscienced  that,  in  the  most  picturesque,  the 
most  prettily  appointed  and  thoroughly  convenienced 
cottages,  they  cannot  forget  their  fellow-mortals  in  the 
summer  hotels,  in  the  boarding-houses  by  sea  or  shore, 
in  the  farms  where  they  have  small  fruits,  fresh  vege 
tables,  and  abundance  of  milk  and  eggs ;  yes,  they  even 
remember  those  distant  relations  who  toil  and  swelter 
in  the  offices,  the  shops,  the  streets,  the  sewers ;  and  they 
are  not  without  an  unavailing  shame  for  their  own 
good-fortune. 

But  is  it  really  their  good-fortune?  They  would 
not  exchange  it  for  the  better  fortune  of  the  home- 

334 


THE    SUMMER    SOJOURN 

keepers,  and  yet  it  seems  worse  than  that  of  people  less 
voluntarily  circumstanced.  There  is  nothing  left  for 
Elorindo  and  Lindora  to  try,  except  spending  the  sum 
mer  on  a  yacht,  which  they  see  many  other  Florindos 
and  Lindoras  doing.  Even  these  gay  voyagers,  or  gay 
anchorers  (for  they  seem  most  of  the  time  to  be  moored 
in  safe  harbors),  do  not  appear  altogether  to  like  their 
lot,  or  to  be  so  constantly  contented  with  it  but  that  they 
are  always  coining  off  in  boats  to  dine  at  the  neighbor 
ing  hotels.  Doubtless  a  yacht  has  a  crumpled  rose-leaf 
under  it,  and  possibly  the  keelless  hull  of  the  house 
boat  feels  the  irk  of  a  folded  petal  somewhere. 

Elorindo  and  Lindora  are  not  spoiled,  she  is  sure  of 
that  in  her  own  case,  for  she  has  never  been  unrea 
sonably  exacting  of  circumstance.  She  has  always  tried 
to  be  more  comfortable  than  she  found  herself,  but  that 
is  the  condition  of  progress,  and  it  is  from  the  perpetual 
endeavor  for  the  amelioration  of  circumstance  that 
civilization  springs.  The  fault  may  be  with  Florindo, 
in  some  way  that  she  cannot  see,  but  it  is  certainly  not 
with  her,  and,  if  it  is  not  with  him,  then  it  is  with  the 
summer,  which  is  a  season  so  unreasonable  that  it  will 
not  allow  itself  to  be  satisfactorily  disposed  of.  In 
town  it  is  intolerable;  in  the  mountains  it  is  sultry  by 
day  and  all  but  freezing  by  night;  at  the  seaside  it  is 
cold  and  wet  or  dry  and  cold ;  there  are  flies  and  mos 
quitoes  everywhere  but  in  Europe,  and,  with  the  bottom 
once  out  of  Europe,  you  cannot  go  there  without  drop 
ping  through.  In  Lindora's  experience  the  summer  has 
had  the  deceitful  effect  of  owning  its  riddle  read  at 
each  new  conjecture,  but,  having  exhausted  all  her  prac 
tical  guesses,  she  finds  the  summer  still  the  mute,  inex 
orable  sphinx  for  which  neither  farm-board,  boarding- 
houses,  hotels,  European  sojourn,  nor  cottaging  is  the 
true  answer. 

335 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

Sometimes  Florindo  or  Lindora  is  out  of  all  patience 
with  the  summer,  and  in  a  despair  which  she  is  careful 
to  share  with  Florindo,  as  far  as  she  can  make  him  a 
partner  of  it.  But  as  it  is  his  business  to  provide  the 
means  of  each  new  condition,  and  hers  to  prove  it  im 
possible,  he  is  not  apt  to  give  way  so  fully  as  she.  He 
tells  her  that  their  trouble  is  that  they  have  always 
endeavored  to  escape  an  ordeal  which  if  frankly  borne 
might  not  have  been  so  bad,  and  he  has  tried  to  make 
her  believe  that  some  of  the  best  times  he  has  had  in 
summer  have  been  when  he  was  too  busy  to  think  about 
it.  She  retorts  that  she  is  busy,  too,  from  morning  till 
night,  without  finding  the  least  relief  from  the  sum 
mer  ordeal  or  forgetting  it  a  single  moment. 

The  other  day  he  came  home  from  the  club  with  a 
beaming  face,  and  told  her  that  he  had  just  heard  of 
a  place  where  the  summer  was  properly  disposed  of, 
and  she  said  that  they  would  go  there  at  once,  she  did 
not  care  where  it  was. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  he  answered.  "  There  would 
have  to  be  two  opinions,  I  believe." 

"  Why  ?"  she  demanded,  sharply.     "  Where  is  it «" 

"  In  the  other  world.  Fanshawe,  the  Swedenborgian, 
was  telling  me  about  it.  In  one  of  the  celestial  heavens 
— there  seem  to  be  seven  of  them — it  appears  that  all 
the  four  seasons  are  absorbed  into  one,  as  all  the  dif 
ferent  ages  are  absorbed  into  a  sort  of  second  youth. 
This  sole  season  is  neither  hot  nor  cold,  but  has  the 
quality  of  a  perpetual  springtime.  How  would  you  like 
that?" 

Lindora  was  too  vexed  with  him  to  make  any  answer, 
and  he  was  sorry.  He,  too,  felt  the  trouble  of  the  sum 
mer  more  than  he  would  allow,  and  he  would  willingly 
have  got  away  from  it  if  he  could.  Lindora's  im 
patience  with  it  amused  him,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  in 

336 


THE    SUMMER    SOJOURN 

the  moment  of  his  greatest  amusement  with  her  im 
patience  he  had  any  glimpse  of  that  law  of  the  uni 
versal  life  by  which  no  human  creature  is  permitted 
to  escape  a  due  share  of  the  responsibilities  and  burdens 
of  the  common  lot,  or  realized  that  to  seek  escape  from 
them  is  a  species  of  immorality  which  is  unfailingly 
punished  like  any  other  sin,  in  and  from  itself. 


IX 

TO  HAVE  THE  HONOR  OF  MEETING 

As  the  winter  deepens  and  darkens,  the  people  who 
have  time  and  money  to  waste,  and  who  are  always 
seeking  opportunities  for  squandering  both,  find  none 
so  gracious  and  graceful  as  giving  dinners  to  other  peo 
ple  who  have  time  and  money  to  waste.  The  prime 
condition  of  such  dinners  is  that  neither  host  nor  guest 
shall  need  them.  The  presence  of  a  person  who  actually 
wanted  meat  and  drink  would  imply  certain  insuper 
able  disqualifications.  The  guest  must  have  the  habit 
of  dining,  with  the  accumulated  indifference  to  dinners 
and  the  inveterate  inability  to  deal  peptically  with  them 
which  result  from  the  habit  of  them.  Your  true  diner 
must  be  well  on  in  middle  life,  for  though  the  young 
may  eat  and  drink  together  and  apparently  dine,  it  is 
of  the  gray  head  difficultly  bowed  over  the  successive 
courses,  and  the  full  form  of  third  youth  straining  its 
silken  calyx  and  bursting  all  too  richly  out  above  it, 
that  the  vision  presents  itself  when  one  thinks  of  din 
ners  and  diners./ 

After  all  the  exclusions  are  made,  dinner  is  still  a 
theme  so  large  that  one  poor  Easy  Chair  paper  could 
not  compass  it,  or  do  more  than  attach  itself  here  and 
there  to  its  expanse.  In  fact/it  was  only  one  kind  of 
dinner  we  had  in  mind  at  the  beginning,  and  that  was 
the  larger  or  smaller  public  dinner.  There  the  process 

338 


THE    II  ON  OK    OF    MEETING 

of  exclusion  is  carried  yet  a  step  further,  and  the  guests 
are  all  men,  and  for  the  most  part  elderly  men.  The 
exceptional  public  dinners  where  women  are  asked  need 
not  be  counted ;  and  at  other  public  dinners  they  do  not 
seem  eager  to  throng  the  galleries,  where  they  are 
handsomely  privileged  to  sit,  looking  down,  among  the 
sculptured  and  frescoed  arabesques,  on  the  sea  of  bald 
heads  and  shirt-fronts  that  surge  about  the  tables  be 
low,  and  showing  like  dim,  decollete  angels  to  the 
bleared  vision  raised  to  them  from  the  floor.  As  they 
are  not  expected  to  appear  till  the  smoking  and  speak 
ing  have  begun,  they  grow  fainter  and  fainter  through 
the  clouds  of  tobacco  and  oratory,  and  it  is  never  known 
to  the  diners  whether  they  abuse  the  chary  hospitality 
of  coffee  and  ices  offered  them  in  their  skyey  height, 
where  from  time  to  time  the  sympathetic  ear  may  hear 
them  softly  gasping,  gently  coughing. 

It  is  a  pity  that  none  of  these  witnesses  of  a  large 
public  dinner  has  recorded  her  bird's-eye  impression  of 
it  at  the  interesting  moment  when  their  presence  is 
suffered  or  desired.  All  those  gray  or  bald  heads,  and 
all  those  bulging  shirt-fronts,  must  look  alike  at  the 
first  glance,  and  it  can  be  only  to  carefuler  scrutiny 
that  certain  distinctions  of  projecting  whiskers  and 
mustaches  pronounce  themselves.  The  various  figures, 
lax  or  stiff  in  their  repletion,  must  more  or  less  re 
peat  one  another,  and  the  pudgy  hands,  resting  heavily 
on  the  tables'  edges  or  planted  on  their  owners'  thighs, 
must  seem  of  a  very  characterless  monotony.  The  poor 
old  fellows  ranked  in  serried  sameness  at  the  tables 
slanted  or  curved  from  the  dais  where  the  chairman 
and  the  speakers  sit  must  have  one  effect  of  wishing 
themselves  at  home  in  bod. 

What  do  they  really  think  of  it,  those  angels,  leaning 
over  and  looking  down  on  it  ?  Does  it  strike  them  with 

339 


IMAGINAKY    INTEKVIEWS 

envy,  with  admiration?  Does  it  seem  one  of  the  last 
effects  of  a  high  and  noble  civilization?  To  their 
"  finer  female  sense,"  what  is  the  appeal  of  that  evanes 
cing  spectacle,  as  the  noise  of  the  cheering  and  the 
laughing  and  the  clapping  of  hands  rises  to  them  at 
some  more  rocket-like  explosion  of  oratory?  Is  the 
oratory  mainly  of  the  same  quality  to  those  supernal 
intelligences  as  the  fading  spectacle?  None  of  them 
has  said,  and  we  may  have  still  the  hope  that  the  whole 
affair  may  have  seemed  to  them  the  splendid  and  grace 
ful  ceremonial  which  it  appears  in  the  illustrations  of 
the  next  day's  papers. 

The  speaking  is  perhaps  not  always  so  good  as  it 
seems  to  the  mellowed  tolerance  of  the  listener,  when  it 
begins  after  all  those  courses  of  meat  and  drink,  but 
not  perhaps  always  so  bad  as  he  thinks  it  when,  the 
morning  following,  he  wakes  "  high  sorrowful  and 
cloyed,"  and  has  not  yet  read  the  reports  of  it.  In 
confidence,  however,  it  may  be  owned  that  it  is  apt 
rather  to  be  bad  than  good.  If  what  has  led  up  to  it 
has  softened  the  critical  edge  of  the  listener,  it  has  not 
sharpened  the  critical  edge  of  the  speaker,  and  they 
meet  on  the  common  ground  where  any  platitude  passes, 
where  a  farrago  of  funny  stories  serves  the  purpose  of 
coherent  humor,  where  any  feeble  flash  of  wit  lights  up 
the  obscurity  as  with  an  electric  radiance,  where  any 
slightest  trickle  or  rinsing  of  sentiment  refreshes  "  the 
burning  forehead  and  the  parching  tongue  "  like  a  gush 
of  genuine  poetry.  The  mere  reputation  of  the  speaker 
goes  a  great  way,  almost  the  whole  way ;  and,  especially 
if  he  is  a  comic  speaker,  he  might  rise  up  and  sit  down 
without  a  word  and  yet  leave  his  hearers  the  sense  of 
having  been  richly  amused.  If  he  does  more,  if  he 
really  says  something  droll,  no  matter  how  much  below 
the  average  of  the  give  and  take  of  common  talk,  the 

340 


THE    HONOR    OF    MEETING 

listener's  gratitude  is  frantic.  It  is  so  eager,  it  so  out 
runs  utterance,  that  it  is  not  strange  the  after-dinner 
speech  should  be  the  favorite  field  of  the  fake-humorist, 
who  reaps  a  full  and  ever-ripened  harvest  in  it,  and 
prospers  on  to  a  celebrity  for  brilliancy  which  there  is 
little  danger  of  his  ever  forfeiting  so  long  as  he  keeps 
there. 

The  fake-humorous  speaker  has  an  easier  career  than 
even  the  fake-eloquent  speaker.  Yet  at  any  given  din 
ner  the  orator  who  passes  out  mere  elocution  to  his 
hearers  has  a  success  almost  as  instant  and  splendid 
as  his  clowning  brother.  It  is  amazing  what  things 
people  will  applaud  when  they  have  the  courage  of 
one  another's  ineptitude.  They  will  listen,  after  din 
ner,  to  anything  but  reason.  They  prefer  also  the  old 
speakers  to  new  ones;  they  like  the  familiar  taps  of 
humor,  of  eloquence;  if  they  have  tasted  the  brew  be 
fore,  they  know  what  they  are  going  to  get.  The  note 
of  their  mood  is  tolerance,  but  tolerance  of  the  accus 
tomed,  the  expected ;  not  tolerance  of  the  novel,  the  sur 
prising.  They  wish  to  be  at  rest,  and  what  taxes  their 
minds  molests  their  intellectual  repose.  They  do  not 
wish  to  climb  any  great  heights  to  reach  the  level  of 
the  orator.  Perhaps,  after  all,  they  are  difficult  in  their 
torpidity. 

The  oratory  seems  to  vary  less  throughout  any  given 
dinner  than  from  dinner  to  dinner,  and  it  seems  better 
or  worse  according  as  the  dinner  is  occasional  or  per 
sonal.  The  occasional  dinner  is  in  observance  of  some 
notable  event,  as  the  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  or  the 
Surrender  of  Cornwallis,  or  the  Invention  of  Gun 
powder,  or  the  Discovery  of  America.  Its  nature  in 
vites  the  orator  to  a  great  range  of  talk ;  he  may  browse 
at  large  in  all  the  fields  of  verbiage  without  seeming  to 
break  bounds.  It  rests  with  him,  of  course,  to  decide 

341 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

whether  he  will  talk  too  long,  for  the  danger  that  he 
may  do  so  cannot  he  guarded  from  the  outside.  The 
only  good  after-dinner  speaker  is  the  man  who  likes  to 
speak,  and  the  man  who  likes  to  speak  is  always  apt  to 
speak  too  much.  The  hapless  wretch  whom  the  chair 
man  drags  to  his  feet  in  a  cold  perspiration  of  despair, 
and  who  blunders  through  half  a  dozen  mismated  sen 
tences,  leaving  out  whatever  he  meant  to  say,  is  not  to 
he  feared;  he  is  to  be  pitied  from  the  bottom  of  one's 
soul.  But  the  man  whose  words  come  actively  to  the 
support  of  his  thoughts,  and  whose  last  word  suggests 
to  him  another  thought,  he  is  the  speaker  to  be  feared, 
and  yet  not  feared  the  worst  of  all.  There  is  another 
speaker  more  dreadful  still,  who  thinks  as  little  stand 
ing  as  sitting,  and  whose  words  come  reluctantly,  but 
who  keeps  on  and  on  in  the  vain  hope  of  being  able  to 
say  something  before  he  stops,  and  so  cannot  stop. 

The  speaking  at  the  occasional  dinner,  however,  is 
much  more  in  the  control  of  the  chairman  than  the 
speaking  at  the  personal  dinner.  The  old  fashion  of 
toasts  is  pretty  well  past,  but  the  chairman  still  ap 
points,  more  or  less,  the  subject  of  the  speaker  he  calls 
up.  He  may  say,  if  the  dinner  is  in  honor  of  the  In 
vention  of  Gunpowder,  "  We  have  with  us  to-night  a 
distinguished  soldier  who  has  burned  a  good  deal  of 
gunpowder  in  his  time;  and  I  am  sure  we  should  all 
like  to  hear  from  General  Jones  something  of  his  ex 
perience  with  the  new  smokeless  explosives."  Or  if  it 
is  the  Discovery  of  America  they  are  commemorating, 
he  may  call  to  his  feet  some  representatively  venerable 
citizen,  with  a  well-earned  compliment  to  his  antiquity, 
and  the  humorous  suggestion  that  he  was  personally 
knowing  to  the  landing  of  Columbus.  Then  General 
Jones,  or  the  venerable  citizen,  will  treat  at  his  pleas 
ure  of  any  subject  under  heaven,  after  having  made  his 

342 


THE    HONOR    OF    MEETING 

manners  to  that  given  him  by  the  chairman  and  pro 
fessed  his  unfitness  to  handle  it. 

^At  the  personal  dinner,  the  speaker  must  in  decency 
stick  for  a  while  at  least  to  his  text,  which  is  always 
the  high  achievement  of  the  honored  guest,  in  law, 
letters,  medicine,  arms,  drainage,  dry-goods,  poultry- 
farming,  or  whatever.  He  must  not,  at  once,  turn  his 
back  on  the  honored  guest  and  talk  of  other  things; 
and  when  sometimes  he  does  so  it  seems  rude. 

The  menu  laid  before  the  diner  at  this  sort  of  dinner 
may  report  a  variety  of  food  for  the  others,  but  for  the 
honored  guest  the  sole  course  is  taffy,  with  plenty  of 
drawn  butter  in  a  lordly  dish.  The  honored  guest  is 
put  up  beside  the  chairman,  with  his  mouth  propped 
open  for  the  taffy,  and  before  the  end  he  is  streaming 
drawn  butter  from  every  limb.  The  chairman  has 
poured  it  over  him  with  a  generous  ladle  in  his  opening 
speech,  and  each  speaker  bathes  him  with  it  anew  from 
the  lordly  dish.  The  several  speakers  try  to  surpass 
one  another  in  the  application,  searching  out  some  cor 
ner  or  crevice  of  his  personality  which  has  escaped 
the  previous  orators,  and  filling  it  up  to  overflowing. 
The  listeners  exult  with  them  in  their  discoveries,  and 
roar  at  each  ^triumph  of  the  sort:  it  is  apparently  a 
proof  of  brilliant  intuition  when  a  speaker  seizes  upon 
some  forgotten  point  in  the  honored  guest's  character 
or  career  and  drenches  it  with  drawn  butter.  ^ 

To  what  good  end  do  men  so  flatter  and  befool  one 
of  their  harmless  fellows  ?  What  is  there  in  the  nature 
of  literary  or  agricultural  achievement  which  justifies 
the  outrage  of  his  modest  sense  of  inadequacy  ?/  It  is  a 
preposterous  performance,  but  it  does  not  reach  the 
climax  of  its  absurdity  till  the  honored  guest  rises, 
with  his  mouth  filled  with  taffy,  and,  dripping  drawn 
butter  all  over  the  place,  proceeds  to  ladle  out  from  the 

343 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

Lordly  dish,  restored  to  its  place  before  the  chairman,  a 
portion  for  each  of  the  preceding  speakers.  He  may 
not  feel  quite  like  doing  it.  In  their  fierce  rivalry  of 
adulation,  some  of  them,  in  order  to  give  fresh  flavor  * 
to  the  taffy,  may  have  mingled  a  little  vinegar  with  it.(/ 
One  may  have  said  that  the  bantams  of  the  honored 
guest  were  not  perhaps  as  small  as  some  other  bantams, 
but  that  the  colossal  size  of  his  shanghais  was  beyond 
parallel.  Another  may  have  hinted,  for  the  purpose 
of  superiorly  praising  his  masterly  treatment  of  the 
pip,  that  the  diet  of  his  hens  was  not  such  as  to  impart 
to  their  eggs  the  last  exquisite  flavor  demanded  by  the 
pampered  palate  of  the  epicure.  Another  yet  may  have 
admitted  that  the  honored  guest  had  not  successfully 
grappled  with  the  great  question  of  how  to  make  hens 
lay  every  working-day  of  the  year,  and  he  may  have 
done  this  in  order  to  heighten  his  grand  climax  that 
the  man  who  teaches  a  hen  to  lay  an  egg  with  two  yolks 
where  she  laid  eggs  of  but  one  yolk  before  is  a  greater 
benefactor  to  the  human  race  than  all  the  inventors  of 
all  the  missiles  of  modern  warfare.  Such  a  poultry- 
farmer,  he  may  have  declared,  preparatory  to  taking 
his  seat  amid  thunders  of  applause,  is  to  other  poultry- 
farmers  what  the  poet  who  makes  the  songs  of  a  people 
is  to  the  boss  who  makes  their  laws.  This  sentiment 
may  have  been  met  with  a  furore  of  acceptance,  all  the 
other  guests  leaning  forward  to  look  at  the  honored 
guest  and  concentrate  their  applause  upon  him,  as  they 
clapped  and  cheered,  and  one  fine  fellow  springing  to 
his  feet  and  shouting,  "Here's  to  the  man  who  made 
two-yolk  eggs  grow  where  one-yolk  eggs  grew  before." 
Yet  these  artfully  studied  qualifications  of  the  cloy 
ing  sweet  may  have  been  all  of  the  taste  of  wormwood 
to  the  honored  guest,  who  cared  nothing  for  his  easy 
triumph  with  shanghais  and  the  pip  and  these  two-yolk 

344 


THE    HONOK    OF    MEETING 

eggs,  but  prided  himself  on  his  bantams  and  his  hen- 
food,  and  was  clinging  to  the  hope  that  his  discoveries 
in  the  higher  education  would  teach  hens  to  observe  the 
legal  holidays  if  they  could  not  be  taught  to  lay  on 
every  working-day,  and  was  trusting  to  keep  his  meas 
ure  of  failure  a  secret  from  the  world.  It  would  not 
do,  however,  to  betray  anything  of  his  vexation.  That 
would  be  ungracious  and  ungrateful,  and  so  he  must 
render  back  taffy  for  taffy,  drawn  butter  for  drawn 
butter,  till  the  whole  place  sticks  and  reeks  with  it. 

Of  course,  the  reader — especially  if  he  has  never  been 
asked  to  a  personal  dinner  of  this  sort — will  be  saying 
that  the  fault  is  not  with  the  solemnity  or  its  nature, 
but  with  the  taste  of  those  who  conduct  the  ceremony. 
He  will  no  doubt  be  thinking  that  if  he  were  ever  made 
the  object  of  such  a  solemnity,  or  the  chairman,  or  the 
least  of  the  speakers,  he  would  manage  differently. 
Very  likely  he  will  allege  the  example  of  the  Greeks, 
as  we  have  it  recorded  in  the  accounts  of  the  banquet 
offered  to  Themistocles  after  the  battle  of  Salamis,  and 
the  supper  given  to  ^Eschylus  on  the  hundredth  per 
formance  of  the  (Edipus  of  Sophocles. 

The  supper  has  always  been  considered  rather  a  re 
finement  upon  the  banquet,  in  taste,  as  it  was  offered 
to  the  venerable  poet  not  upon  the  occasion  of  any 
achievement  of  his  own,  but  in  recognition  of  the  pro 
longed  triumph  of  his  brother  dramatist,  in  which  it 
was  assumed  that  he  would  feel  a  generous  interest. 
The  banquet  to  Themistocles  was  more  in  the  nature 
of  a  public  rejoicing,  for  it  celebrated  a  victory  due 
as  much  to  the  valor  of  all  the  Greeks  as  to  the  genius 
of  the  admiral;  and  it  could,  therefore,  be  made  more 
directly  a  compliment  to  him.  Even  under  these  cir 
cumstances,  however,  the  guest  of  the  evening  occupied 
an  inconspicuous  place  at  the  reporters'  table,  while  he 

23  315 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

was  represented  on  the  chairman's  right  by  the  bust  of 
Poseidon,  hastily  modelled  for  the  occasion  by  Prax 
iteles,  and  dedicated  to  Themistocles,  who  was  a  plain 
man,  but  whose  portrait,  even  if  he  had  been  handsome, 
it  was  thought  would  not  have  looked  well  in  such  a 
position  at  a  time  when  portrait-statuary  was  unknown. 
The  only  direct  allusion  to  him  was  in  the  opening  toast, 
"  The  Dewey  of  Our  Day,"  which  was  drunk  sitting, 
the  guests  rising  from  their  recumbent  postures  in  honor 
of  it.  The  chairman's  opening  address  was  almost 
wholly  a  plea  for  the  enlargement  of  the  Athenian 
navy :  the  implication  that  the  republic  had  been  saved, 
in  spite  of  its  inefficient  armament,  was  accepted  as  the 
finest  possible  compliment  to  the  guest  of  the  evening. 
The  note  of  all  the  other  speeches  was  their  exquisite 
impersonality.  They  got  further  and  further  from  the 
occasion  of  the  evening,  until  the  effort  of  Demosthenes 
closed  the  speaking  with  a  scathing  denunciation  of  the 
machine  politicians  who  had  involved  the  Athenians  in 
a  war  with  Persia  to  further  the  interests  of  Sparta. 
It  was  held  that  this  was  the  noblest  tribute  which 
could  be  paid  to  the  genius  of  the  man  who  had  brought 
them  safely  out  of  it.  As  the  company  broke  up,  Di 
ogenes  with  his  lantern  approached  Themistocles,  who 
was  giving  the  reporters  copies  of  the  speech  he  had 
not  been  asked  to  deliver,  and,  after  examining  his 
countenance  with  a  sigh  of  disappointment,  accom 
panied  him  home  as  far  as  his  own  tub;  Athens  at 
that  time  being  imperfectly  lighted,  and  the  reform 
government  having  not  yet  replaced  the  street  names 
wantonly  obliterated  under  the  regime  of  the  Thirty 
Tyrants. 

At  the  supper  to  ^Eschylus  the  tablets  of  the  menu 
were  inscribed  with  verses  from  the  elder  poet  ingen 
iously  chosen  for  their  imaginable  reference  to  the  mas- 

346 


THE    HONOR    OF    MEETING 

terpiecc  of  the  younger,  whose  modesty  was  delicately 
spared  at  every  point.  It  was  a  question  whether  the 
committee  managing  the  affair  had  not  perhaps  gone 
too  far  in  giving  the  supper  while  Sophocles  was  away 
from  Athens  staging  the  piece  at  Corinth;  but  there 
was  no  division  of  opinion  as  to  the  taste  with  which 
some  of  the  details  had  been  studied.  It  was  consid 
ered  a  stroke  of  inspiration  to  have  on  the  speaker's 
left,  where  Sophocles  would  have  sat  if  he  had  been 
present  at  a  supper  given  to  ^Eschylus,  the  sitting  fig 
ure  of  Melpomene,  crowned  with  rosemary  for  remem 
brance.  ~No  allusion  was  made  to  ^Eschylus  during  the 
evening,  after  his  health  had  been  proposed  by  the 
chairman  and  drunk  in  silence,  but  a  great  and  ex 
quisite  surprise  was  reserved  for  him  in  the  matter  of 
the  speeches  that  followed.  By  prior  agreement  among 
the  speakers  they  were  all  ostensibly  devoted  to  the  ex 
amination  of  the  (Edipus  and  the  other  dramas  of 
Sophocles,  which  in  his  absence  were  very  frankly  dealt 
with.  But  the  unsparing  criticism  of  their  defects  was 
made  implicitly  to  take  the  character  of  appreciation  of 
the  ^]schylus  tragedies,  whose  good  points  were  all 
turned  to  the  light  without  open  mention  of  them.  This 
afforded  the  aged  poet  an  opportunity  of  magnanimous 
ly  defending  his  younger  confrere,  and  he  rose  to  the 
occasion,  beaming,  as  some  one  said,  from  head  to  foot 
and  oozing  self-satisfaction  at  every  pore.  He  could 
not  put  from  him  the  compliments  not  ostensibly  di 
rected  at  him,  but  he  could  and  did  take  up  the  criti 
cisms  of  the  Sophoclean  drama,  point  by  point,  and 
refute  them  in  the  interest  of  literature,  with  a  masterly 
elimination  of  himself  and  his  own  part  in  it.  A  Ro 
man  gentleman  present  remarked  that  he  had  seen  noth 
ing  like  it,  for  sincere  deprecation,  since  Caesar  had 
refused  the  thrice-offered  crown  on  the  Lupercal;  and 

347 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

the  effect  was  that  intended  throughout — the  supreme 
honor  of  ^Eschylus  in  the  guise  of  a  tribute  to  Soph 
ocles.  The  note  of  the  Avhole  affair  was  struck  by  the 
comic  poet  Aristophanes,  whom  the  chairman  called 
upon  to  make  the  closing  speech  of  the  evening,  and 
who  merely  sat  up  long  enough  to  quote  the  old  Attic 
proverb,  "  Gentlemen,  there  are  many  ways  to  kill  a 
dog  besides  choking  him  to  death  with  butter,"  and  then 
lay  down  again  amid  shrieks  of  merriment  from  the 
whole  company. 

There  is,  perhaps,  a  middle  course  between  the  Amer 
ican  and  Athenian  ways  of  recognizing  achievement  in 
the  arts  or  interests,  or  of  commemorating  great  pub 
lic  events.  This  would  probably  derive  from  each  cer 
tain  advantages,  or  at  least  the  ancient  might  temper 
the  modern  world  to  a  little  more  restraint  than  it  now 
practises  in  the  celebration  of  private  worth,  especially. 
The  public  events  may  be  more  safely  allowed  to  take 
care  of  themselves,  though  it  is  to  be  questioned  whether 
it  is  well  for  any  people  to  make  overmuch  of  them 
selves.  They  cannot  do  it  without  making  themselves 
ridiculous,  and  perhaps  making  themselves  sick  of  what 
little  real  glory  there  is  in  any  given  affair;  they  will 
have  got  that  so  inextricably  mixed  up  with  the  vain 
glory  that  they  will  have  to  reject  the  one  to  free  them 
selves  from  the  humiliating  memory  of  the  other. 

There  is  nothing  that  so  certainly  turns  to  shame  in 
the  retrospect  as  vainglory,  and  this  is  what  the  per 
sonal  dinner  is  chiefly  supposed  to  inspire  in  the  victim 
of  it.  If  he  is  at  all  honest  with  himself,  and  he  prob 
ably  is  before  he  can  have  done  anything  worthy  of 
notice,  he  knows  perfectly  well  that  he  has  not  merited 
all  if  any  of  the  fond  flatteries  with  which  he  is  heaped, 
as  he  sits  helpless  with  meat  and  drink,  and  suffers 
under  them  with  the  fatuous  smile  which  we  all  have 

348 


THE    HONOR    OF    MEETING 

seen  and  which  some  of  us  have  worn.  But  as  the  flat 
terers  keep  coming  on  and  on,  each  with  his  garland  of 
tuberoses  or  sunflowers,  he  begins  to  think  that  there 
must  be  some  fire  where  there  is  so  much  smoke,  and  to 
feel  the  glow  of  the  flame  which  he  is  not  able  exactly 
to  locate.  He  burns  in  sympathy  with  his  ardent 
votaries,  he  becomes  inevitably  a  partner  in  his  own 
apotheosis.  It  is  the  office  of  the  sad,  cold  morrow,  and 
the  sadder  and  colder  after-morrows,  to  undo  this  il 
lusion,  to  compress  his  head  to  the  measure  of  his  hat, 
to  remove  the  drawn  butter  from  his  soul.  L^ 

They  may  never  wholly  succeed,  but  this  is  not  prob 
able,  and  it  is  not  against  a  permanent  folie  des  gran 
deurs  that  we  need  seek  to  guard  the  victim  of  a  per 
sonal  dinner.  We  have,  indeed,  so  much  faith  in  the 
ultimate  discretion  of  the  race  that  we  should  be  quite 
willing  to  intrust  the  remarkable  man  himself  with  the 
office  of  giving  himself  a  public  dinner  when  he  felt 
that  his  work  merited  signal  recognition.  In  this  way 
the  whole  affair  could  be  kept  within  bounds.  He 
could  strike  the  rote,  he  could  set  the  pace,  in  his 
opening  address ;  and,  having  appointed  the  speakers, 
with  a  full  knowledge  of  their  honesty  and  subordina 
tion,  he  could  trust  the  speeches  to  be  sane  and  tem 
perate.  In  calling  the  speakers  successively  up,  he 
could  protest  against  anything  that  seemed  excessive 
eulogy  in  the  words  already  spoken,  and  could  invite 
a  more  mode*t  estimate  of  his  qualities  and  achieve 
ments  in  the  speeches  to  follow. 


A  DAY  AT  BRONX  PARK 

ITT  the  beginning  of  the  season  which  is  called  Silly 
in  the  world  of  journalism,  because  the  outer  vacuity 
then  responds  to  the  inner,  and  the  empty  brain  vainly 
interrogates  the  empty  environment  for  something  to 
write  of,  two  friends  of  the  Easy  Chair  offered  to  spend 
a  holiday  in  search  of  material  for  a  paper.  The  only 
conditions  they  made  were  that  the  Easy  Chair  should 
not  exact  material  of  weight  or  importance,  but  should 
gratefully  accept  whatever  they  brought  back  to  it,  and 
make  the  most  of  it.  On  these  terms  they  set  out  on 
their  labor  of  love. 

By  the  time  the  sun  had  quitted  the  face  of  the  vast 
apartment-house  on  which  the  day  habitually  broke,  and 
had  gone  about  its  business  of  lighting  and  heating  the 
city  roofs  and  streets,  the  holiday  companions  were  well 
on  their  way  up  the  Third  Avenue  Elevated  toward 
that  region  of  the  Bronx  which,  in  all  their  New  York 
years,  they  had  never  yet  visited.  They  exulted  at 
each  stop  and  start  of  the  train  in  the  long  succession 
of  streets  which  followed  so  fast  upon  one  another  that 
the  guards  gave  up  trying  to  call  them  out  as  a  hundred- 
and-so-many,  and  simply  said  Fifty-fifth,  and  Sixty- 
sixth,  and  Seventy-seventh  Street.  This  slight  of  their 
duty  to  the  public  comported  agreeably  with  the  slip- 

350 


A    DAY    AT     BRONX    PARK 

shod  effectiveness  of  the  whole  apparatus  of  the  New 
York  life:  the  rows  and  rows  of  shops,  the  rows  and 
rows  of  flats,  the  rows  and  rows  of  back  yards  with 
miles  of  wash  flying  in  the  soft  May  wind,  whicL,  prob 
ably,  the  people  in  the  open  car  ahead  felt  almost  a 
gale. 

When  the  train  got  as  far  as  the  composite  ugliness 
of  the  ships  and  tugs  and  drawbridges  of  Harlem  River, 
the  companions  accepted  the  ensemble  as  picturesque- 
ness,  and  did  not  require  beauty  of  it.  Once  they  did 
get  beauty  in  a  certain  civic  building  which  fronted  the 
track  and  let  fall  a  double  stairway  from  its  level  in 
a  way  to  recall  the  Spanish  Steps  and  to  get  itself 
likened  to  the  Trinita  de'  Monti  at  Rome. 

It  was,  of  course,  like  that  only  in  their  fond  re 
membrance,  but  this  was  not  the  only  Roman  quality 
in  their  cup  of  pleasure  that  day ;  and  they  did  not  care 
to  inquire  whether  it  was  merely  the  flavoring  extract 
of  fancy,  or  was  a  genuine  infusion  from  the  Italian 
sky  overhead,  the  classic  architectural  forms,  the  loosely 
straggling  grass,  the  flowering  woods,  the  rapture  of  the 
birds,  the  stretches  of  the  river,  the  tumbling  rapids, 
which  so  delicately  intoxicated  them.  There  was  a 
certain  fountain  gave  a  peculiar  authenticity  to  their 
pleasure,  as  of  some  assurance  blown  in  the  bottle  from 
which  their  joy-draught  was  poured.  Nowhere  else  but 
in  Rome  could  they  have  imagined  such  a  group  of 
bronze  men  and  maidens  and  web-footed  horses  strug 
gling  so  bravely,  so  aimlessly  (except  to  show  their  fig 
ures),  in  a  shallow  bowl  from  which  the  water  spilled 
so  unstintedly  over  white  marble  brims  beginning  to 
paint  themselves  palely  green. 

At  the  end  of  their  glad  day  this  fountain  came  last 
of  the  things  that  made  "Bronx  Park  such  a  paradise 
for  eight  hours;  though  it  might  have  been  their  first 

351 


IMAGINAEY    INTEKVIEWS 

delight  if  they  had  taken  one  way  about  instead  of  an 
other  in  their  tour  of  the  large,  easy  pleasance.  But 
suddenly  at  half  -  past  eleven  they  found  themselves 
ravenously  hungry,  and  demanded  to  be  driven  to  the 
best  restaurant  by  the  shortest  way  that  the  mild  youth 
whom  they  fell  to  at  once  inside  the  park  gate  could 
find. 

He  had  the  very  horse  he  ought  to  have  had — old, 
weary,  infirm,  decently  hiding  its  disabilities  under  a 
blanket,  and,  when  this  was  stripped  away,  confessing 
them  in  a  start  so  reluctant  that  they  had  to  be  ex 
plained  as  the  stiffness  natural  to  any  young,  strong, 
and  fresh  horse  from  resting  too  long.  It  did,  in  fact, 
become  more  animated  as  time  went  on,  and  perhaps  it 
began  to  take  an  interest  in  the  landscape  left  so  charm 
ingly  wild  wherever  it  could  be.  It  apparently  liked 
being  alive  there  with  its  fares,  kindred  spirits,  who 
could  appreciate  the  privacy  of  a  bland  Monday  after 
the  popular  outing  of  the  day  before.  Almost  nobody 
else  was  in  the  park.  For  a  time  they  noted  only  a 
young  fellow  with  a  shut  book  in  his  hand  taking  his 
way  up  a  woody  slope  and  fading  into  a  green  shadow ; 
but  presently  they  came  to  a  grassy  point  running  down 
to  the  road,  where,  tinder  a  tree,  there  was  a  young 
mother  sitting  with  an  open  book  in  her  lap,  and,  a 
little  way  from  her  outstretched  little  foot,  her  baby 
asleep  in  the  smallest  of  go-carts — the  collapsible  sort 
that  you  can  fold  and  carry  in  the  cars  and  then  unfold 
for  use  when  you  come  to  the  right  place.  The  baby 
had  a  white  sunbonnet,  and  a  thick  fringe  of  her  straw- 
colored  hair  came  out  over  her  forehead  under  it,  and 
when  the  companions  smiled  together  at  the  baby,  and 
the  horse  intelligently  faltered,  the  young  mother  flut 
tered  the  idle  leaves  of  her  book  with  her  hand  and 
smiled  back  at  them,  and  took  the  credit  of  the  little 

352 


A    DAY    AT    BRONX    PARK 

one,  not  unkindly,  yet  proudly.  They  said  it  was  all 
as  nice  as  it  could  be,  and  they  were  still  so  content  in 
her  and  her  baby  that,  when  they  had  to  drive  out  of  the 
park  to  cross  a  street  to  the  section  where  the  restaurant 
and  the  menagerie  were,  they  waited  deferentially  for  a 
long,  long  funeral  to  get  by.  They  felt  pity  for  the 
bereaved,  and  then  admiration  for  people  who  could 
afford  to  have  so  many  carriages ;  and  they  made  their 
driver  ask  the  mounted  policeman  whose  funeral  it 
was.  He  addressed  the  policeman  by  name,  and  the 
companions  felt  included  in  the  circle  of  an  acquaint 
ance  where  a  good  deal  of  domesticity  seemed  to  pre 
vail.  The  policeman  would  not  join  in  the  conjecture 
that  it  was  some  distinguished  person ;  he  did  not  give 
his  reasons;  and  the  pair  began  to  fret  at  their  delay, 
and  mentally  to  hurry  that  poor  unknown  underground 
— so  short  is  our  patience  with  the  dead !  When  at  last 
their  driver  went  up  round  the  endless  queue  of  hacks, 
it  suddenly  came  to  an  end,  and  they  were  again  in 
the  park  and  among  the  cages  and  pens  and  ranges 
of  the  animals,  in  the  midst  of  which  their  own  res 
taurant  appeared.  An  Italian  band  of  mandolins 
and  guitars  was  already  at  noonday  softly  murmur 
ing  and  whimpering  in  the  corner  of  the  veranda 
wrhere  the  tables  were  set;  and  they  got  an  amiable 
old  waiter,  whose  fault  it  was  not  if  spring-lamb  ma 
tures  so  early  in  the  summer  of  its  brief  term  as  to 
seem  last-fall-bmb.  There  is  no  good  reason  either  to 
suppose  he  did  not  really  believe  in  the  pease.  But 
why  will  pease  that  know  they  have  been  the  whole 
winter  in  the  can  pretend  to  be  just  out  of  the  pod  ? 
Doubtless  it  is  for  every  implication  that  all  vegeta 
tion  is  of  one  ichor  with  humanity;  but  the  waiter 
was  honester  than  the  pease.  He  telephoned  for  two 
wheeled  chairs,  and  then  said  he  had  countermanded 

353 


IMAGINAKY    INTERVIEWS 

them  because  they  would  be  half  an  hour  coming;  but 
again  he  telephoned,  for  by  this  time  the  pair  had 
learned  that  they  might  drive  into  the  zoological 
grounds,  but  not  drive  round  them;  and  they  saw 
from  the  window  the  sun  smoking  hot  on  the  asphalt 
paths  their  feet  must  press. 

While  the  chairs  lingered  on  the  way,  they  went  to 
get  what  comfort  they  could  from  the  bears,  whose 
house  was  near  at  hand.  They  might  well  have  learned 
patience  here  from  a  bear  trying  to  cope  with  a  mock 
ing  cask  in  a  pool.  He  pushed  it  under  the  water  with 
his  paw  and  held  it  hard  down;  when  he  turned  away 
as  if  that  cask  were  done  for,  there  it  was  bobbing 
about  on  the  surface,  and  he  had  to  down  it  again  and 
hold  it  under  till  life  seemed  extinct.  At  last  he  gave 
it  up  and  left  it  floating  in  triumph,  but  one  could 
infer  with  what  perseverance  he  would  renew  the  strug 
gle  presently. 

There  might  have  been  too  many  bears ;  but  this  was 
the  fault  of  all  their  fellow-captives  except  perhaps 
the  elephants.  One  cannot  really  have  enough  of  ele 
phants;  and  one  would  have  liked  a  whole  herd  of 
giraffes,  and  a  whole  troop  of  gnus  would  not  have 
glutted  one's  pleasure  in  their  goat-faces,  cow-heads, 
horse-tails,  and  pig-feet.  But  why  so  many  snakes  of 
a  kind  ?  Why  such  a  multiplicity  of  crocodiles  ?  Why 
even  more  than  one  of  that  special  pattern  of  Mexican 
iguana  which  looked  as  if  cut  out  of  zinc  and  painted 
a  dull  Paris  green?  Why,  above  all,  so  many  small 
mammals  ? 

Small  mammals  was  the  favorite  phrase  of  the  friend 
ly  colored  chair-man,  who  by  this  time  had  appeared 
with  an  old-soldier  comrade  and  was  pushing  the  com 
panions  about  from  house  to  house  and  cage  to  cage. 
Small  mammals,  he  warned  them,  were  of  an  offensive 

354 


A    DAY    AT    BRONX    PARK 

odor,  and  he  was  right;  but  he  was  proud  of  them  and 
of  «ach  scientific  knowledge  of  them  as  he  had.  The 
old  soldier  did  not  pretend  to  have  any  such  knowledge. 
He  fell  into  a  natural  subordination,  and  let  his  col 
ored  superior  lead  the  way  mostly,  though  he  asserted 
the  principle  that  this  is  a  white  man's  country  by 
pushing  first  to  the  lions'  house  instead  of  going  to 
the  flying-cage,  as  his  dark  comrade  instructed  him. 

It  was  his  sole  revolt.  "  But  what,"  we  hear  the 
reader  asking,  "  is  the  flying-cage  ?"  We  have  not  come 
to  that  yet;  we  are  lingering  still  at  the  lions'  house, 
where  two  of  the  most  amiable  lions  in  the  world  smil 
ingly  illustrate  the  effect  of  civilization  in  such  of  their 
savage  species  as  are  born  in  the  genial  captivity  of 
Bronx  Park.  We  are  staying  a  moment  in  the  cool 
stone  stable  of  the  elephants  and  the  rhinoceroses  and 
the  hippopotamuses ;  we  are  fondly  clinging  to  the  wires 
of  the  cages  where  the  hermit-thrushes,  snatched  from 
their  loved  solitude  and  mixed  with  an  indiscriminate 
company  of  bolder  birds,  tune  their  angelic  notes  only 
in  a  tentative  staccato ;  we  are  standing  rapt  before  the 
awful  bell-bird  ringing  his  sharp,  unchanging,  unceas 
ing  peal,  as  unconscious  of  us  as  if  he  had  us  in  the 
heart  of  his  tropical  forest;  we  are  waiting  for  the 
mighty  blue  Brazilian  macaw  to  catch  our  names  and 
syllable  them  to  the  shrieking,  shrilling,  snarling  so 
ciety  of  parrots  trapezing  and  acrobating  about  him; 
we  are  even  stopping  to  see  the  white  peahen  wearing 
her  heart  out  and  her  tail  out  against  her  imprisoning 
wires ;  we  are  delaying  to  let  the  flying-cage  burst  upon 
us  in  the  unrivalled  immensity  promised.  That  is,  we 
are  doing  all  this  in  the  personalities  of  those  holiday 
companions,  who  generously  found  the  cage  as  wide 
and  high  as  their  chair-men  wished,  and  gratefully 
gloated  upon  its  pelicans  and  storks  and  cranes  and 

355 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

swars  and  wild  geese  and  wood-ducks  and  curlews  and 
sea-pigeons,  and  gulls,  and  whatever  other  water- lowl 
soars  and  swims.  It  was  well,  they  felt,  to  have  had 
this  kept  for  the  last,  with  its  great  lesson  of  a  com 
munistic  captivity  in  which  all  nations  of  men  might 
be  cooped  together  in  amity  and  equality,  instead  of 
being,  as  now,  shut  up  each  in  his  own  cell  of  need  and 
fear. 

Not  having  come  in  an  automobile,  the  companions 
were  forced  by  an  invidious  regulation  to  find  their 
carriage  outside  the  gate  of  the  Concourse;  but  neither 
the  horse  nor  the  driver  seemed  to  feel  the  slight  of 
the  discrimination.  They  started  off  to  complete  the 
round  of  the  park  with  all  their  morning  cheerfulness 
and  more;  for  they  had  now  added  several  dollars  to 
their  tariff  of  charges  by  the  delay  of  their  fares,  and 
they  might  well  be  gayer.  Their  fares  did  not  refuse 
to  share  their  mood,  and  when  they  crossed  the  Bronx 
and  came  into  the  region  of  the  walks  and  drives  they 
were  even  gayer  than  their  horse  and  man.  These  were 
more  used  to  the  smooth  level  of  the  river  where  it 
stretched  itself  out  between  its  meadowy  shores  and 
mirrored  the  blue  heaven,  rough  with  dusky  white 
clouds,  in  its  bosom ;  they  could  not  feel,  as  their  fares 
did,  the  novelty  in  the  beauty  of  that  hollow,  that  wide 
grassy  cup  by  which  they  drove,  bathed  in  the  flowery 
and  blossomy  sweetness  that  filled  it  to  its  wood-bor 
dered  brim. 

But  what  is  the  use  of  counting  one  by  one  the  joys 
of  a  day  so  richly  jewelled  with  delight  ?  Rather  let  us 
heap  them  at  once  in  the  reader's  lap  and  not  try  to 
part  the  recurrence  of  the  level-branched  dogwoods  in 
bloom ;  the  sunny  and  the  shadowy  reaches  of  the  woods 
still  in  the  silken  filminess  of  their  fresh  young  leaves ; 
the  grass  springing  slenderly,  tenderly  on  the  unmown 

356 


A    DAY    AT    BKONX    PAilK 

slopes  of  the  roadsides,  or  giving  up  its  life  in  spicy 
sweetness  from  the  scythe;  the  gardeners  pausing  from 
their  leisurely  employ,  and  once  in  the  person  of  their 
foreman  touching  their  hats  to  the  companions;  the 
wistaria-garlanded  cottage  of  the  keeper  of  the  estate 
now  ceded  to  the  city;  the  Gothic  stable  of  the  former 
proprietor  looking  like  a  Gothic  chapel  in  its  dell;  the 
stone  mansion  on  its  height  opening  to  curiosity  a  vague 
collection  of  minerals,  and  recalling  with  its  dim,  hard 
wood  interior  the  ineffectual  state  of  a  time  already 
further  outdated  than  any  colonial  prime ;  the  old  snuff- 
mill  of  the  founders,  hard  by;  the  dam  breaking  into 
foam  in  the  valley  below;  the  rustic  bridge  crossing 
from  shore  to  shore,  with  steel-engraving  figures  leaning 
on  its  parapet  and  other  steel-engraving  presences  by 
the  water's  brink. 

The  supreme  charm  is  that  you  are  so  free  to  all 
things  in  that  generous  park ;  that  you  may  touch  them 
and  test  them  by  every  sense ;  that  you  may  stray  among 
the  trees,  and  lie  down  upon  the  grass,  and  possess 
yourself  indiscriminately  of  them  quite  as  if  they  were 
your  own. 

They  are  indeed  yours  in  the  nobler  sense  of  pub 
lic  proprietorship  which  will  one  day,  no  doubt,  super 
sede  all  private  ownership.  You  have  your  share  of 
the  lands  and  waters,  the  birds  in  the  cages  and  the 
beasts,  from  the  lions  and  elephants  in  their  palaces, 
and  the  giraffes  freely  browsing  and  grazing  in  their 
paddock,  down  to  the  smallest  of  the  small  mammals 
giving  their  odor  in  their  pens.  You  have  as  much 
right  as  another  to  the  sculptures  (all  hand-carved,  as 
your  colored  chair-man  will  repeatedly  tell  you)  on  the 
mansions  of  the  lordlier  brutes,  and  there  is  none  to 
dispute  your  just  portion  of  the  Paris-green  zinc  iguana, 
for  you  have  helped  pay  for  them  all. 

357 


IMAGINARY    INTERVIEWS 

The  key-word  of  this  reflection  makes  you  anxious  to 
find  whether  your  driver  will  make  you  pay  him  too 
much,  but  when  you  tot  up  the  hours  hy  his  tariff,  and 
timidly  suggest  that  it  will  be  so  many  dollars  and 
offer  him  a  bill  for  the  same,  he  surprises  you  by  say 
ing,  No,  he  owes  you  fifty  cents  on  that;  and  paying 
it  back. 

Such  at  least  was  the  endearing  experience  of  the 
companions  at  the  end  of  their  day's  pleasure.  Not 
that  it  was  really  the  end,  for  there  was  the  airy  swoop 
homeward  in  the  Elevated  train,  through  all  that  ugly 
picturesqueness  of  bridges  and  boats  and  blocks  of 
buildings,  with  the  added  interest  of  seeing  the  back- 
flying  streets  below  now  full  of  children  let  loose  from 
school  for  the  afternoon,  and  possessing  the  roadways 
and  sidewalks  as  if  these,  too,  were  common  property 
like  the  park.  It  seemed  to  the  companions  that  the 
children  increased  toward  the  shabbier  waterside,  and 
decreased  wherever  the  houses  looked  better,  through 
that  mystical  law  of  population  by  which  poverty  is 
richer  than  prosperity  is  in  children.  They  could  see 
them  yelling  and  screaming  at  their  games,  though  they 
could  not  hear  them,  and  they  yelled  and  screamed  the 
louder  to  the  eye  because  they  were  visibly  for  the 
greatest  part  boys.  If  they  were  the  offspring  of  alien 
parents,  they  might  be  a  proof  of  American  decay; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  preponderance  of  boys  was 
in  repair  of  that  disproportion  of  the  sexes  which  in 
the  east  of  these  States  is  such  a  crying  evil. 

Perhaps  it  was  the  behavior  of  the  child  in  the  op 
posite  seat  which  made  the  companions  think  of  girls 
as  a  crying  evil;  the  mental  operations  are  so  devious 
and  capricious;  but  this  child  was  really  a  girl.  She 
was  a  pretty  child  and  prettily  dressed,  with  a  little 
face  full  of  a  petulant  and  wilful  charm,  which  might 

358 


A    DAY    AT    BKONX    PARK 

well  have  been  too  much  for  her  weak,  meek  young 
mother.  She  wanted  to  be  leaning  more  than  half  out 
of  the  window  and  looking  both  ways  at  once,  and  she 
fought  away  the  feebly  restraining  hands  with  sharp, 
bird-like  shrieks,  so  that  the  companions  expected  every 
moment  to  see  her  succeed  in  dashing  herself  to  death, 
and  suffered  many  things  from  their  fear.  When  it 
seemed  as  if  nothing  could  save  them,  the  guard  came 
in  and  told  the  weak,  meek  mother  that  the  child  must 
not  lean  out  of  the  window.  Instantly,  such  is  the 
force  of  all  constituted  authority  among  us,  the  child 
sat  down  quietly  in  her  mother's  lap,  and  for  the  rest 
of  the  journey  remained  an  example  to  angels,  so  that 
the  companions  could  rejoice  as  much  in  her  goodness 
as  in  her  loveliness.  She  became,  indeed,  the  crown  of 
their  happy  day,  a  day  so  happy  that  now  in  the  faint 
air  of  August  it  is  hard  to  believe  it  even  of  May. 


THE    END 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL.  NO.  642-3405  ED 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


or 


Due  end  of  WINTER 


ro  rece 


uarter 


171 


KEC'D  LD  MAY 


2471  -J2M   41 


APR  \  1 1984 


16*69 


LD21A-607n-3,'70 
(N5382slO)476-A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


LD  2lA-60m-10,'65 
(F7763slO)476B 


282129 


ij 


UNIVERSITY  OK  CALIFORNIA 


